Off Topic · OT: The American middle class just got their goose cooked (page 7)

TPercy @ 12/5/2017 3:19 PM
Gustav me and you agree that shareholder capitalism is bad both for the people and the companies that actually want long term success. Your articles validate that to an extent. What is your point?
GustavBahler @ 12/5/2017 3:32 PM
TPercy wrote:Gustav me and you agree that shareholder capitalism is bad both for the people and the companies that actually want long term success. Your articles validate that to an extent. What is your point?

When you put it that way, nothing at all.

TPercy @ 12/5/2017 3:40 PM
In fact I believe that the corporate tax should be eliminated and we should just tax shareholders instead. I'm not saying everything is fine and dandy. Shareholder value as stupid a theory as it is has been on rise since 90s but is on a decline though. Nevertheless I think that if we move the taxes over to the shareholders themselves with minimal increases in taxes on capital gains, we'd see far more growth. Either way I think reducing the rate is definitely a step in the right direction. Now we just have to cut spending.
GustavBahler @ 12/5/2017 3:50 PM
TPercy wrote:In fact I believe that the corporate tax should be eliminated and we should just tax shareholders instead. I'm not saying everything is fine and dandy. Shareholder value as stupid a theory as it is has been on rise since 90s but is on a decline though. Nevertheless I think that if we move the taxes over to the shareholders themselves with minimal increases in taxes on capital gains, we'd see far more growth. Either way I think reducing the rate is definitely a step in the right direction. Now we just have to cut spending.

Would like to see them implement a transaction tax on stock trades. Might even discourage some of that high speed trading, but make it a progressive tax that doesnt hurt Mom and Pop investors. The big boys in the game can easily absorb it. Could be used strictly for infrastructure repairs, putting people to work rebuilding America, not privatizing it and charging Americans more rent.

We need almost 2 Trillion dollars worth in repairs. Money has to come from somewhere. We became a financial services driven economy in the 21st century, so its only natural thats where the money is to be taxed. To what degree is debatable.

TPercy @ 12/5/2017 3:55 PM
GustavBahler wrote:
TPercy wrote:In fact I believe that the corporate tax should be eliminated and we should just tax shareholders instead. I'm not saying everything is fine and dandy. Shareholder value as stupid a theory as it is has been on rise since 90s but is on a decline though. Nevertheless I think that if we move the taxes over to the shareholders themselves with minimal increases in taxes on capital gains, we'd see far more growth. Either way I think reducing the rate is definitely a step in the right direction. Now we just have to cut spending.

Would like to see them implement a transaction tax on stock trades. Might even discourage some of that high speed trading, but make it a progressive tax that doesnt hurt Mom and Pop investors. The big boys in the game can easily absorb it. Could be used strictly for infrastructure repairs, putting people to work rebuilding America, not privatizing it and charging Americans more rent.

We need almost 2 Trillion dollars worth in repairs. Money has to come from somewhere. We became a financial services driven economy in the 21st century, so its only natural thats where the money is to be taxed. To what degree is debatable.

I think we disagree here. I think the idea that americas infrastructure is crumbling is hyperbole at best.

GustavBahler @ 12/5/2017 3:59 PM
TPercy wrote:
GustavBahler wrote:
TPercy wrote:In fact I believe that the corporate tax should be eliminated and we should just tax shareholders instead. I'm not saying everything is fine and dandy. Shareholder value as stupid a theory as it is has been on rise since 90s but is on a decline though. Nevertheless I think that if we move the taxes over to the shareholders themselves with minimal increases in taxes on capital gains, we'd see far more growth. Either way I think reducing the rate is definitely a step in the right direction. Now we just have to cut spending.

Would like to see them implement a transaction tax on stock trades. Might even discourage some of that high speed trading, but make it a progressive tax that doesnt hurt Mom and Pop investors. The big boys in the game can easily absorb it. Could be used strictly for infrastructure repairs, putting people to work rebuilding America, not privatizing it and charging Americans more rent.

We need almost 2 Trillion dollars worth in repairs. Money has to come from somewhere. We became a financial services driven economy in the 21st century, so its only natural thats where the money is to be taxed. To what degree is debatable.

I think we disagree here. I think the idea that americas infrastructure is crumbling is hyperbole at best.

As someone who drove recently from the East to West coast. I can say without having to pull up a link, that it is no hyperbole. Im pretty sure some of our posters from other countries can claim a much more up to date infrastructure. I wasnt even aware that it was being debated by anyone.

meloshouldgo @ 12/5/2017 4:01 PM
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.


No mate you just don't understand how to read a basic graph. Your initial graph is comparing ALL corporate before tax to ALL Corporate profit after tax even though they arnt paying a tax on ALL profits. Its not conjuncture it's a fact. Corporations currently keep 2.6 trillion in profits overseas.

The point of the chart is lost on you. Companies used to invest in their employees in the 60s before neoliberals like you started making excuses for them. It doesn't matter if 85% of today's profits came from abroad the remaining 15% is still a 150 times what they had in the 60s, but they don't invest any of it in their employees.

I am arguing companies don't care about their employees and are using the tax rate as an excuse. We could lower the tax rate and nothing would change. You are arguing the companies make their money abroad, the fungible quality of money and the corporate shell games make that impossible to prove or deny. What can be proved is that companies are not interested in investing in their employees.

In 2004, intense corporate lobbying persuaded Congress to pass what was called the American Jobs Creation Act. A section of that bill, called the Homeland Investment Act, said that, for one time only, companies could bring the money home and pay only a 5.25 percent tax rate. Companies promised they would use the cash to invest in research and development, build plants and hire Americans. There were safeguards that were supposed to keep the money from being used to pay dividends.

The safeguards did not work. On average, one study reported, companies that brought back money used 60 percent or more of the cash to increase dividends or buy back stock. What they did not do was use the money to hire people or invest in the United States.

But a precedent was established. Companies concluded that it was foolish to bring money home and pay the normal tax rate. Lobbying had produced a tax break once, and perhaps it could do so again.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/bu...

nixluva @ 12/5/2017 4:05 PM
arkrud wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.

This all evil greedy corporations must be nationalized and run by liberal professors...
This will start the Golden age in America!!!

How about returning to a FAIR and BALANCED Economic situation like we had before they tilted everything in favor of Big Corps and the Rich??? You know the GREAT version of this country everyone keeps hearing about.

TPercy @ 12/5/2017 5:05 PM
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.


No mate you just don't understand how to read a basic graph. Your initial graph is comparing ALL corporate before tax to ALL Corporate profit after tax even though they arnt paying a tax on ALL profits. Its not conjuncture it's a fact. Corporations currently keep 2.6 trillion in profits overseas.

The point of the chart is lost on you. Companies used to invest in their employees in the 60s before neoliberals like you started making excuses for them. It doesn't matter if 85% of today's profits came from abroad the remaining 15% is still a 150 times what they had in the 60s, but they don't invest any of it in their employees.

I am arguing companies don't care about their employees and are using the tax rate as an excuse. We could lower the tax rate and nothing would change. You are arguing the companies make their money abroad, the fungible quality of money and the corporate shell games make that impossible to prove or deny. What can be proved is that companies are not interested in investing in their employees.

In 2004, intense corporate lobbying persuaded Congress to pass what was called the American Jobs Creation Act. A section of that bill, called the Homeland Investment Act, said that, for one time only, companies could bring the money home and pay only a 5.25 percent tax rate. Companies promised they would use the cash to invest in research and development, build plants and hire Americans. There were safeguards that were supposed to keep the money from being used to pay dividends.

The safeguards did not work. On average, one study reported, companies that brought back money used 60 percent or more of the cash to increase dividends or buy back stock. What they did not do was use the money to hire people or invest in the United States.

But a precedent was established. Companies concluded that it was foolish to bring money home and pay the normal tax rate. Lobbying had produced a tax break once, and perhaps it could do so again.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/bu...

Dude the nytimes article proves my point. The 2004 act reduced it for 1 year and brought home 300 billion which was far more than expected. And you can't use something for 1 year to conclude something that happens over a period of time especially since foreign investment also plays a major part considering that the US is an attractive spot for foreign investment. In fact, such is the reason why I'm hesistent to compare US Corporations and US workers hand in hand because so many other foreign companies employ our workers that arnt as profitable as US companies.

It's widely conceived that tax holidays arnt a good thing and don't create jobs. I would agree with you on that

meloshouldgo @ 12/5/2017 8:27 PM
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.


No mate you just don't understand how to read a basic graph. Your initial graph is comparing ALL corporate before tax to ALL Corporate profit after tax even though they arnt paying a tax on ALL profits. Its not conjuncture it's a fact. Corporations currently keep 2.6 trillion in profits overseas.

The point of the chart is lost on you. Companies used to invest in their employees in the 60s before neoliberals like you started making excuses for them. It doesn't matter if 85% of today's profits came from abroad the remaining 15% is still a 150 times what they had in the 60s, but they don't invest any of it in their employees.

I am arguing companies don't care about their employees and are using the tax rate as an excuse. We could lower the tax rate and nothing would change. You are arguing the companies make their money abroad, the fungible quality of money and the corporate shell games make that impossible to prove or deny. What can be proved is that companies are not interested in investing in their employees.

In 2004, intense corporate lobbying persuaded Congress to pass what was called the American Jobs Creation Act. A section of that bill, called the Homeland Investment Act, said that, for one time only, companies could bring the money home and pay only a 5.25 percent tax rate. Companies promised they would use the cash to invest in research and development, build plants and hire Americans. There were safeguards that were supposed to keep the money from being used to pay dividends.

The safeguards did not work. On average, one study reported, companies that brought back money used 60 percent or more of the cash to increase dividends or buy back stock. What they did not do was use the money to hire people or invest in the United States.

But a precedent was established. Companies concluded that it was foolish to bring money home and pay the normal tax rate. Lobbying had produced a tax break once, and perhaps it could do so again.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/bu...

Dude the nytimes article proves my point. The 2004 act reduced it for 1 year and brought home 300 billion which was far more than expected. And you can't use something for 1 year to conclude something that happens over a period of time especially since foreign investment also plays a major part considering that the US is an attractive spot for foreign investment. In fact, such is the reason why I'm hesistent to compare US Corporations and US workers hand in hand because so many other foreign companies employ our workers that arnt as profitable as US companies.

It's widely conceived that tax holidays arnt a good thing and don't create jobs. I would agree with you on that

Your inability to parse the content of the article kinda proves my point. You just find the first thing that sounds like you pet position and you latch on to it. The article was about profits being made IN THE US. And the companies playing games disingenuously claim those profits came from non US sources so as to not pay taxes on it. If your point was that companies are encouraged to be dishonest because of the tax rate and you are in full support of such dishonesty then yes - point well made.It also shows that they don't give a rat's ass about the workforce in the US or anywhere else they only care about maximizing what they pay to the shareholders and by extension to themselves.


Now back to what we were discussing despite multiple efforts to derail the conversation - why don't companies spend more money on their workforce? Even after parking 80% of heir gains offshore (the real number is below 40%) for big companies and much much smaller for small companies what is keeping them from investing in actual growth instead of share price jacking? Can you actually answer that question? And if your answer is the tax rate then why aren't countries with low tax rates seeing and explosion in innovative growth and wages?

TPercy @ 12/6/2017 12:51 AM
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.


No mate you just don't understand how to read a basic graph. Your initial graph is comparing ALL corporate before tax to ALL Corporate profit after tax even though they arnt paying a tax on ALL profits. Its not conjuncture it's a fact. Corporations currently keep 2.6 trillion in profits overseas.

The point of the chart is lost on you. Companies used to invest in their employees in the 60s before neoliberals like you started making excuses for them. It doesn't matter if 85% of today's profits came from abroad the remaining 15% is still a 150 times what they had in the 60s, but they don't invest any of it in their employees.

I am arguing companies don't care about their employees and are using the tax rate as an excuse. We could lower the tax rate and nothing would change. You are arguing the companies make their money abroad, the fungible quality of money and the corporate shell games make that impossible to prove or deny. What can be proved is that companies are not interested in investing in their employees.

In 2004, intense corporate lobbying persuaded Congress to pass what was called the American Jobs Creation Act. A section of that bill, called the Homeland Investment Act, said that, for one time only, companies could bring the money home and pay only a 5.25 percent tax rate. Companies promised they would use the cash to invest in research and development, build plants and hire Americans. There were safeguards that were supposed to keep the money from being used to pay dividends.

The safeguards did not work. On average, one study reported, companies that brought back money used 60 percent or more of the cash to increase dividends or buy back stock. What they did not do was use the money to hire people or invest in the United States.

But a precedent was established. Companies concluded that it was foolish to bring money home and pay the normal tax rate. Lobbying had produced a tax break once, and perhaps it could do so again.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/bu...

Dude the nytimes article proves my point. The 2004 act reduced it for 1 year and brought home 300 billion which was far more than expected. And you can't use something for 1 year to conclude something that happens over a period of time especially since foreign investment also plays a major part considering that the US is an attractive spot for foreign investment. In fact, such is the reason why I'm hesistent to compare US Corporations and US workers hand in hand because so many other foreign companies employ our workers that arnt as profitable as US companies.

It's widely conceived that tax holidays arnt a good thing and don't create jobs. I would agree with you on that

Your inability to parse the content of the article kinda proves my point. You just find the first thing that sounds like you pet position and you latch on to it. The article was about profits being made IN THE US. And the companies playing games disingenuously claim those profits came from non US sources so as to not pay taxes on it. If your point was that companies are encouraged to be dishonest because of the tax rate and you are in full support of such dishonesty then yes - point well made.It also shows that they don't give a rat's ass about the workforce in the US or anywhere else they only care about maximizing what they pay to the shareholders and by extension to themselves.


Now back to what we were discussing despite multiple efforts to derail the conversation - why don't companies spend more money on their workforce? Even after parking 80% of heir gains offshore (the real number is below 40%) for big companies and much much smaller for small companies what is keeping them from investing in actual growth instead of share price jacking? Can you actually answer that question? And if your answer is the tax rate then why aren't countries with low tax rates seeing and explosion in innovative growth and wages?

Don't talk about my inability for anything the fact that you didn't even respond to your failed attempt of comparing tax holidays to tax cuts says it all. And your second point where you assume that a corporations keeping money overseas proves they are screwing their workers is false. Buisnesses are in the buisness of making money pure and simple and if you have taken a finance 101 class before you would know that buisnesses don't just invest for no reason. They invest when they expect to get a high rate of return on what they are investing in as a result when faced with a high corporate tax rate, of course there is no incentive to invest here or for foreign investments( where a lot if not most of the prospects will come from) to invest here as well.

To your second question there are so many factors that goes into other countries that it would basically be apples to oranges especially considering the vast differences between the US and said countries.

meloshouldgo @ 12/6/2017 7:02 AM
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.


No mate you just don't understand how to read a basic graph. Your initial graph is comparing ALL corporate before tax to ALL Corporate profit after tax even though they arnt paying a tax on ALL profits. Its not conjuncture it's a fact. Corporations currently keep 2.6 trillion in profits overseas.

The point of the chart is lost on you. Companies used to invest in their employees in the 60s before neoliberals like you started making excuses for them. It doesn't matter if 85% of today's profits came from abroad the remaining 15% is still a 150 times what they had in the 60s, but they don't invest any of it in their employees.

I am arguing companies don't care about their employees and are using the tax rate as an excuse. We could lower the tax rate and nothing would change. You are arguing the companies make their money abroad, the fungible quality of money and the corporate shell games make that impossible to prove or deny. What can be proved is that companies are not interested in investing in their employees.

In 2004, intense corporate lobbying persuaded Congress to pass what was called the American Jobs Creation Act. A section of that bill, called the Homeland Investment Act, said that, for one time only, companies could bring the money home and pay only a 5.25 percent tax rate. Companies promised they would use the cash to invest in research and development, build plants and hire Americans. There were safeguards that were supposed to keep the money from being used to pay dividends.

The safeguards did not work. On average, one study reported, companies that brought back money used 60 percent or more of the cash to increase dividends or buy back stock. What they did not do was use the money to hire people or invest in the United States.

But a precedent was established. Companies concluded that it was foolish to bring money home and pay the normal tax rate. Lobbying had produced a tax break once, and perhaps it could do so again.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/bu...

Dude the nytimes article proves my point. The 2004 act reduced it for 1 year and brought home 300 billion which was far more than expected. And you can't use something for 1 year to conclude something that happens over a period of time especially since foreign investment also plays a major part considering that the US is an attractive spot for foreign investment. In fact, such is the reason why I'm hesistent to compare US Corporations and US workers hand in hand because so many other foreign companies employ our workers that arnt as profitable as US companies.

It's widely conceived that tax holidays arnt a good thing and don't create jobs. I would agree with you on that

Your inability to parse the content of the article kinda proves my point. You just find the first thing that sounds like you pet position and you latch on to it. The article was about profits being made IN THE US. And the companies playing games disingenuously claim those profits came from non US sources so as to not pay taxes on it. If your point was that companies are encouraged to be dishonest because of the tax rate and you are in full support of such dishonesty then yes - point well made.It also shows that they don't give a rat's ass about the workforce in the US or anywhere else they only care about maximizing what they pay to the shareholders and by extension to themselves.


Now back to what we were discussing despite multiple efforts to derail the conversation - why don't companies spend more money on their workforce? Even after parking 80% of heir gains offshore (the real number is below 40%) for big companies and much much smaller for small companies what is keeping them from investing in actual growth instead of share price jacking? Can you actually answer that question? And if your answer is the tax rate then why aren't countries with low tax rates seeing and explosion in innovative growth and wages?

Don't talk about my inability for anything the fact that you didn't even respond to your failed attempt of comparing tax holidays to tax cuts says it all. And your second point where you assume that a corporations keeping money overseas proves they are screwing their workers is false. Buisnesses are in the buisness of making money pure and simple and if you have taken a finance 101 class before you would know that buisnesses don't just invest for no reason. They invest when they expect to get a high rate of return on what they are investing in as a result when faced with a high corporate tax rate, of course there is no incentive to invest here or for foreign investments( where a lot if not most of the prospects will come from) to invest here as well.

To your second question there are so many factors that goes into other countries that it would basically be apples to oranges especially considering the vast differences between the US and said countries.

What are you babbling about? I didn't compare tax holidays to tax cuts. I lresented a study that showed that companies that promised to use relief obtained through a tax holiday for increases hiring absolutely failed to do so. You are hung up on your own complete misunderstanding of what I am saying. And you haven't successfully made nor defended a valid counter argument.

And while we are at it which of your inconsistencies did you address? You used corporate payroll as a measure of how average Americans are doing, you used the statutory tax rate as an indication of how much taxes companies pay - you are lucky I am still responding to this tripe

Save your sanctimonious business 101 bullshit. The whole point of this thread is businesses should do more to invest in their stakeholders than chasing the highest rate of return. Because in the long term that's the only way they'll continue to succeed. In your style of economics businesses should chase profits and screw their employees over to do so and THAT is what is fukked up about it. Fukk finance 101 and neoliberal dogma.

arkrud @ 12/6/2017 8:30 AM
nixluva wrote:
arkrud wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.

This all evil greedy corporations must be nationalized and run by liberal professors...
This will start the Golden age in America!!!

How about returning to a FAIR and BALANCED Economic situation like we had before they tilted everything in favor of Big Corps and the Rich??? You know the GREAT version of this country everyone keeps hearing about.

Make America great again?
You Cannot Step Into the Same River Twice...
The world is changes every moment and there is no way back.
The stability of US society is rock-solid and based on common sense of people who have something to lose, people with generation wealth.
They will fight for it to death against any destructive change. So I do not worry.

TheGame @ 12/6/2017 9:12 AM
I am still holding out hope that Roy Moore will lose and congress will not be able to get the compromise bill passed. This tax bill is going to lead to huge deficits and eventually major cuts to social programs. I am really starting to fear Trump is trying to destroy America. He lies constantly and works hard to weaken the people's faith in the media. He pits whites against all other races in an attempt to create an us v them dynamic that will continue the racial and social disharmony in this country. It is sad to see.
meloshouldgo @ 12/6/2017 10:45 AM
arkrud wrote:
nixluva wrote:
arkrud wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.

This all evil greedy corporations must be nationalized and run by liberal professors...
This will start the Golden age in America!!!

How about returning to a FAIR and BALANCED Economic situation like we had before they tilted everything in favor of Big Corps and the Rich??? You know the GREAT version of this country everyone keeps hearing about.

Make America great again?
You Cannot Step Into the Same River Twice...
The world is changes every moment and there is no way back.
The stability of US society is rock-solid and based on common sense of people who have something to lose, people with generation wealth.
They will fight for it to death against any destructive change. So I do not worry.

For all the confusing psycho-babble you post one thing is clear. You are just a greedy person and all you care about is making more money and you don't care at what cost to others. You never have.

If you had found yourself as a member of the exploiting class of the inherently corrupt Russian system, you would be defending what you label as socialism and attacking capitalism. You have zero ideology and zero conscience. While you profess empathy in every post your willingness to defend your wealth at the expense of others clearly shows a mindboggling lack thereof.

TPercy @ 12/6/2017 10:49 AM
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.


No mate you just don't understand how to read a basic graph. Your initial graph is comparing ALL corporate before tax to ALL Corporate profit after tax even though they arnt paying a tax on ALL profits. Its not conjuncture it's a fact. Corporations currently keep 2.6 trillion in profits overseas.

The point of the chart is lost on you. Companies used to invest in their employees in the 60s before neoliberals like you started making excuses for them. It doesn't matter if 85% of today's profits came from abroad the remaining 15% is still a 150 times what they had in the 60s, but they don't invest any of it in their employees.

I am arguing companies don't care about their employees and are using the tax rate as an excuse. We could lower the tax rate and nothing would change. You are arguing the companies make their money abroad, the fungible quality of money and the corporate shell games make that impossible to prove or deny. What can be proved is that companies are not interested in investing in their employees.

In 2004, intense corporate lobbying persuaded Congress to pass what was called the American Jobs Creation Act. A section of that bill, called the Homeland Investment Act, said that, for one time only, companies could bring the money home and pay only a 5.25 percent tax rate. Companies promised they would use the cash to invest in research and development, build plants and hire Americans. There were safeguards that were supposed to keep the money from being used to pay dividends.

The safeguards did not work. On average, one study reported, companies that brought back money used 60 percent or more of the cash to increase dividends or buy back stock. What they did not do was use the money to hire people or invest in the United States.

But a precedent was established. Companies concluded that it was foolish to bring money home and pay the normal tax rate. Lobbying had produced a tax break once, and perhaps it could do so again.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/bu...

Dude the nytimes article proves my point. The 2004 act reduced it for 1 year and brought home 300 billion which was far more than expected. And you can't use something for 1 year to conclude something that happens over a period of time especially since foreign investment also plays a major part considering that the US is an attractive spot for foreign investment. In fact, such is the reason why I'm hesistent to compare US Corporations and US workers hand in hand because so many other foreign companies employ our workers that arnt as profitable as US companies.

It's widely conceived that tax holidays arnt a good thing and don't create jobs. I would agree with you on that

Your inability to parse the content of the article kinda proves my point. You just find the first thing that sounds like you pet position and you latch on to it. The article was about profits being made IN THE US. And the companies playing games disingenuously claim those profits came from non US sources so as to not pay taxes on it. If your point was that companies are encouraged to be dishonest because of the tax rate and you are in full support of such dishonesty then yes - point well made.It also shows that they don't give a rat's ass about the workforce in the US or anywhere else they only care about maximizing what they pay to the shareholders and by extension to themselves.


Now back to what we were discussing despite multiple efforts to derail the conversation - why don't companies spend more money on their workforce? Even after parking 80% of heir gains offshore (the real number is below 40%) for big companies and much much smaller for small companies what is keeping them from investing in actual growth instead of share price jacking? Can you actually answer that question? And if your answer is the tax rate then why aren't countries with low tax rates seeing and explosion in innovative growth and wages?

Don't talk about my inability for anything the fact that you didn't even respond to your failed attempt of comparing tax holidays to tax cuts says it all. And your second point where you assume that a corporations keeping money overseas proves they are screwing their workers is false. Buisnesses are in the buisness of making money pure and simple and if you have taken a finance 101 class before you would know that buisnesses don't just invest for no reason. They invest when they expect to get a high rate of return on what they are investing in as a result when faced with a high corporate tax rate, of course there is no incentive to invest here or for foreign investments( where a lot if not most of the prospects will come from) to invest here as well.

To your second question there are so many factors that goes into other countries that it would basically be apples to oranges especially considering the vast differences between the US and said countries.

What are you babbling about? I didn't compare tax holidays to tax cuts. I lresented a study that showed that companies that promised to use relief obtained through a tax holiday for increases hiring absolutely failed to do so. You are hung up on your own complete misunderstanding of what I am saying. And you haven't successfully made nor defended a valid counter argument.

And while we are at it which of your inconsistencies did you address? You used corporate payroll as a measure of how average Americans are doing, you used the statutory tax rate as an indication of how much taxes companies pay - you are lucky I am still responding to this tripe

Save your sanctimonious business 101 bullshit. The whole point of this thread is businesses should do more to invest in their stakeholders than chasing the highest rate of return. Because in the long term that's the only way they'll continue to succeed. In your style of economics businesses should chase profits and screw their employees over to do so and THAT is what is fukked up about it. Fukk finance 101 and neoliberal dogma.

Glaring straw man fallacies aside,This is going around in circles. I'm trying to tell you how a free market works and how enhancing it through incentives rather than regulation is the best route and you are making a case for normative economics through government intervention.
I think we best just end it here and just agree to disagree mate.

meloshouldgo @ 12/6/2017 11:53 AM
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.


No mate you just don't understand how to read a basic graph. Your initial graph is comparing ALL corporate before tax to ALL Corporate profit after tax even though they arnt paying a tax on ALL profits. Its not conjuncture it's a fact. Corporations currently keep 2.6 trillion in profits overseas.

The point of the chart is lost on you. Companies used to invest in their employees in the 60s before neoliberals like you started making excuses for them. It doesn't matter if 85% of today's profits came from abroad the remaining 15% is still a 150 times what they had in the 60s, but they don't invest any of it in their employees.

I am arguing companies don't care about their employees and are using the tax rate as an excuse. We could lower the tax rate and nothing would change. You are arguing the companies make their money abroad, the fungible quality of money and the corporate shell games make that impossible to prove or deny. What can be proved is that companies are not interested in investing in their employees.

In 2004, intense corporate lobbying persuaded Congress to pass what was called the American Jobs Creation Act. A section of that bill, called the Homeland Investment Act, said that, for one time only, companies could bring the money home and pay only a 5.25 percent tax rate. Companies promised they would use the cash to invest in research and development, build plants and hire Americans. There were safeguards that were supposed to keep the money from being used to pay dividends.

The safeguards did not work. On average, one study reported, companies that brought back money used 60 percent or more of the cash to increase dividends or buy back stock. What they did not do was use the money to hire people or invest in the United States.

But a precedent was established. Companies concluded that it was foolish to bring money home and pay the normal tax rate. Lobbying had produced a tax break once, and perhaps it could do so again.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/bu...

Dude the nytimes article proves my point. The 2004 act reduced it for 1 year and brought home 300 billion which was far more than expected. And you can't use something for 1 year to conclude something that happens over a period of time especially since foreign investment also plays a major part considering that the US is an attractive spot for foreign investment. In fact, such is the reason why I'm hesistent to compare US Corporations and US workers hand in hand because so many other foreign companies employ our workers that arnt as profitable as US companies.

It's widely conceived that tax holidays arnt a good thing and don't create jobs. I would agree with you on that

Your inability to parse the content of the article kinda proves my point. You just find the first thing that sounds like you pet position and you latch on to it. The article was about profits being made IN THE US. And the companies playing games disingenuously claim those profits came from non US sources so as to not pay taxes on it. If your point was that companies are encouraged to be dishonest because of the tax rate and you are in full support of such dishonesty then yes - point well made.It also shows that they don't give a rat's ass about the workforce in the US or anywhere else they only care about maximizing what they pay to the shareholders and by extension to themselves.


Now back to what we were discussing despite multiple efforts to derail the conversation - why don't companies spend more money on their workforce? Even after parking 80% of heir gains offshore (the real number is below 40%) for big companies and much much smaller for small companies what is keeping them from investing in actual growth instead of share price jacking? Can you actually answer that question? And if your answer is the tax rate then why aren't countries with low tax rates seeing and explosion in innovative growth and wages?

Don't talk about my inability for anything the fact that you didn't even respond to your failed attempt of comparing tax holidays to tax cuts says it all. And your second point where you assume that a corporations keeping money overseas proves they are screwing their workers is false. Buisnesses are in the buisness of making money pure and simple and if you have taken a finance 101 class before you would know that buisnesses don't just invest for no reason. They invest when they expect to get a high rate of return on what they are investing in as a result when faced with a high corporate tax rate, of course there is no incentive to invest here or for foreign investments( where a lot if not most of the prospects will come from) to invest here as well.

To your second question there are so many factors that goes into other countries that it would basically be apples to oranges especially considering the vast differences between the US and said countries.

What are you babbling about? I didn't compare tax holidays to tax cuts. I lresented a study that showed that companies that promised to use relief obtained through a tax holiday for increases hiring absolutely failed to do so. You are hung up on your own complete misunderstanding of what I am saying. And you haven't successfully made nor defended a valid counter argument.

And while we are at it which of your inconsistencies did you address? You used corporate payroll as a measure of how average Americans are doing, you used the statutory tax rate as an indication of how much taxes companies pay - you are lucky I am still responding to this tripe

Save your sanctimonious business 101 bullshit. The whole point of this thread is businesses should do more to invest in their stakeholders than chasing the highest rate of return. Because in the long term that's the only way they'll continue to succeed. In your style of economics businesses should chase profits and screw their employees over to do so and THAT is what is fukked up about it. Fukk finance 101 and neoliberal dogma.

Glaring straw man fallacies aside,This is going around in circles. I'm trying to tell you how a free market works and how enhancing it through incentives rather than regulation is the best route and you are making a case for normative economics through government intervention.
I think we best just end it here and just agree to disagree mate.

I understand the neoliberal dogma perfectly well. I just think it's bullshit. And I didn't provide any strawman arguments, at least not intentionally. I agree that we won't resolve core philosophical differences through posting on a forum.

arkrud @ 12/6/2017 12:24 PM
meloshouldgo wrote:
arkrud wrote:
nixluva wrote:
arkrud wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.

This all evil greedy corporations must be nationalized and run by liberal professors...
This will start the Golden age in America!!!

How about returning to a FAIR and BALANCED Economic situation like we had before they tilted everything in favor of Big Corps and the Rich??? You know the GREAT version of this country everyone keeps hearing about.

Make America great again?
You Cannot Step Into the Same River Twice...
The world is changes every moment and there is no way back.
The stability of US society is rock-solid and based on common sense of people who have something to lose, people with generation wealth.
They will fight for it to death against any destructive change. So I do not worry.

For all the confusing psycho-babble you post one thing is clear. You are just a greedy person and all you care about is making more money and you don't care at what cost to others. You never have.

If you had found yourself as a member of the exploiting class of the inherently corrupt Russian system, you would be defending what you label as socialism and attacking capitalism. You have zero ideology and zero conscience. While you profess empathy in every post your willingness to defend your wealth at the expense of others clearly shows a mindboggling lack thereof.

My wealth is not on material side so there is no need to protect it.
It cannot be taken away that's why I am content.
The real wealth is spirituality, knowledge, and happiness.
Everyone can have it if he drops hate and fear.
I came to US with no money 20 years back and earn by hard work just enough to leave normal civilized life and do not need more.
The life is short. Our body will be reduced to ashes in no time. So why one will need more money.
You came to this world with close fists and will leave it empty hanged.

nixluva @ 12/6/2017 2:02 PM
arkrud wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
arkrud wrote:
nixluva wrote:
arkrud wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.

This all evil greedy corporations must be nationalized and run by liberal professors...
This will start the Golden age in America!!!

How about returning to a FAIR and BALANCED Economic situation like we had before they tilted everything in favor of Big Corps and the Rich??? You know the GREAT version of this country everyone keeps hearing about.

Make America great again?
You Cannot Step Into the Same River Twice...
The world is changes every moment and there is no way back.
The stability of US society is rock-solid and based on common sense of people who have something to lose, people with generation wealth.
They will fight for it to death against any destructive change. So I do not worry.

For all the confusing psycho-babble you post one thing is clear. You are just a greedy person and all you care about is making more money and you don't care at what cost to others. You never have.

If you had found yourself as a member of the exploiting class of the inherently corrupt Russian system, you would be defending what you label as socialism and attacking capitalism. You have zero ideology and zero conscience. While you profess empathy in every post your willingness to defend your wealth at the expense of others clearly shows a mindboggling lack thereof.

My wealth is not on material side so there is no need to protect it.
It cannot be taken away that's why I am content.
The real wealth is spirituality, knowledge, and happiness.
Everyone can have it if he drops hate and fear.
I came to US with no money 20 years back and earn by hard work just enough to leave normal civilized life and do not need more.
The life is short. Our body will be reduced to ashes in no time. So why one will need more money.
You came to this world with close fists and will leave it empty hanged.

So what does this mean? F U to those who are struggling to get by due to the GREED of a powerful few?

arkrud @ 12/6/2017 4:36 PM
nixluva wrote:
arkrud wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
arkrud wrote:
nixluva wrote:
arkrud wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:
meloshouldgo wrote:
TPercy wrote:

I like this graph better because it takes in outside factors and does it as a percentage of a corporations income.

I don't like the ones you cited because they constantly reference the AFL-CIO/the EPI and they dont factor in benefits like healthcare or free child daycare services that have become a lot more popular(my friend who works at Google has free childcare and lunch to keep the employees productive(I lowkey envy him) nevertheless such forms of benefits weren't the norm back then) nor do they take into performance-based payments like bonuses that also come into play. And don't even get me started on how EPI measures inflation.

When purely looking at pay, of course, one can easily assume that corporations have been dicking down its workers. However, that isn't the case.

Yes that is very much the case. "Employee compensation" sound nice but when the C-suites make 90% of that number it don't mean Jack shit. Look at "real" meaning inflation adjusted median wedge in the country and compare that corporate profits. Here ill fukking do it for you. Wages include bonuses and base salary.

Erm no? Labor compensation is a much more accurate measurement my guy.

How is it more acurate? The numbers in his graph shows total payroll of companies. That include the top level that make more than 40-50% of the compensation sometimes as high add 80% for smaller companies. How does that show that companies are investing in wage growth for rank and file employees? It just shows CEO pay had kept up with profit levels.

Median wage in three other hand shows what the average American makes and us the only true indication of how bad the wage growth had been frozen. Looking at total payroll is a fallacy, because when the outliers account for 60% of the volume the data is worthless.

Yeah but you can't discount the non wage benefits that the employees get which have clearly been on the rise since the 70s. You can't make an honest assesement without using the compensation that employees get.

I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and I get zero non wage benefits. Just because Google does the right thing doesn't mean everybody else is doing it. Complete BS

And I am not discounting anything. We were discussing how corporations have intentionally suppressed wage growth and diverted capital investment to short term shareholder appeasement. You are trying your best to change the subject by talking about this other stuff. Ain't gonna work. kid.

1) do you work for a corporation
2) my story just like yours is purely anedoctal. Also we are comparing data since the 60s so being in the workforce for 20 years as vague as that is doesn't help your point.
3) you can't compare corporate profits to wages of workers. Because while workers are based in the US corporations have expanded overseas allowing them to reap profits there. And yes I made the same mistake with my graph but it nonetheless doesn't harm my overall point. And don't give me that this is only us taxable income because that isn't specified By the St. Louis fed

Now we have cone to the core part of the argument.
Companies use workforces outside the US, because they are cheaper. Nothing in any data you have provided out anyone else, had rigged that behaviour to the US corporate tax rate, which is the premise we are arguing about. I called bullshot on it, hasn't changed.

lets say I have $100 and I keep $90 abroad and leave $10 here. The tax rate is 35% so I pay 35% on that 10 bucks so I have $6.50. In total I now have 96.5 dollars. If I put all my money in US I would have 65 dollars?

You see how what you are saying is skewing evidence?

No I don't, because NO ONE in the US pays anything at the tax rate.
And what evidence did you provide of countries with lower tax rates having benefited from wage growth where the tax rate and not cost of labor was the deciding factor in investment fee cushions made by corporations.

Dude you arnt getting it. Corporations arnt paying it at that rate because they are keeping their profits offshore

No dude you are not getting it they are not paying at the tax rate even for the money they keep in the US. Have you heard of deductions?? Tax credits??? Special exemptions? Tax havens?

There is not one iota of evidence at all that the tax rate has modified ANY behavior. All you have is conjecture and your right wing talking points. And some anecdotal bullshit.

This all evil greedy corporations must be nationalized and run by liberal professors...
This will start the Golden age in America!!!

How about returning to a FAIR and BALANCED Economic situation like we had before they tilted everything in favor of Big Corps and the Rich??? You know the GREAT version of this country everyone keeps hearing about.

Make America great again?
You Cannot Step Into the Same River Twice...
The world is changes every moment and there is no way back.
The stability of US society is rock-solid and based on common sense of people who have something to lose, people with generation wealth.
They will fight for it to death against any destructive change. So I do not worry.

For all the confusing psycho-babble you post one thing is clear. You are just a greedy person and all you care about is making more money and you don't care at what cost to others. You never have.

If you had found yourself as a member of the exploiting class of the inherently corrupt Russian system, you would be defending what you label as socialism and attacking capitalism. You have zero ideology and zero conscience. While you profess empathy in every post your willingness to defend your wealth at the expense of others clearly shows a mindboggling lack thereof.

My wealth is not on material side so there is no need to protect it.
It cannot be taken away that's why I am content.
The real wealth is spirituality, knowledge, and happiness.
Everyone can have it if he drops hate and fear.
I came to US with no money 20 years back and earn by hard work just enough to leave normal civilized life and do not need more.
The life is short. Our body will be reduced to ashes in no time. So why one will need more money.
You came to this world with close fists and will leave it empty hanged.

So what does this mean? F U to those who are struggling to get by due to the GREED of a powerful few?

No, it means that if someone is struggling to get by and other 10 are not there are reasons for this.
And this reasons are complex and not just an existence of powerful few.
If we instead of trying to identify and resolve the issues which set people back, while just concentrate on pure hate, the people in need will never get any help.
Greed is universal issue for all people not just powerful. And the only way to reduce greed is turn it into generosity.
Be it moral incentives or laws that make generosity profitable does not matter.

Gudris @ 12/6/2017 6:02 PM
This is nothing new, in history almost all revolutions was exactly because of this, richest get richer until they reach critical point and get beheaded
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