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The revival of [The Economy] (thread) and the potential for its coming collapse
From my understanding, there's an interest rate increase coming (yay, bonds going up!), the markets have been doing relatively well the last couple years, and so the markets are panicking over the fear that there's a bear market that's overdue.
Economically we're still ok until one of the major shoes drop (No Deal Brexit, Italian debt, Chinese debt, etc.). Then its contagion time and weee.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
So far it's basically, what, a ~5% drop over 2 days? It takes 10% to constitute a correction. So basically that. I think I saw that average 30 year mortgages also bumped up a lot to be 5.0% so that might have caused something automatic with various positions?
Or maybe people are finally realizing that nothing actually changed with the tax law and it was just a one off boost to stock buybacks that won't repeat next year?
+3
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
So far it's basically, what, a ~5% drop over 2 days? It takes 10% to constitute a correction. So basically that. I think I saw that average 30 year mortgages also bumped up a lot to be 5.0% so that might have caused something automatic with various positions?
Or maybe people are finally realizing that nothing actually changed with the tax law and it was just a one off boost to stock buybacks that won't repeat next year?
Lol nah.
The people doing the buybacks are also people who profit from higher stock prices so nah.
So far it's basically, what, a ~5% drop over 2 days? It takes 10% to constitute a correction. So basically that. I think I saw that average 30 year mortgages also bumped up a lot to be 5.0% so that might have caused something automatic with various positions?
Or maybe people are finally realizing that nothing actually changed with the tax law and it was just a one off boost to stock buybacks that won't repeat next year?
The tax law isn't a one-off boost. It's a permanent reduction in tax rate so corps will continue reaping higher profits year after year than they otherwise would have.
The problem is those profits are starting to get eaten into by higher interest rates and, for now at least, are being obliterated by tariffs.
From my understanding, there's an interest rate increase coming (yay, bonds going up!), the markets have been doing relatively well the last couple years, and so the markets are panicking over the fear that there's a bear market that's overdue.
I made this thread a year ago anticipating a bear market, and we're still here waiting. I honestly thought Trump would've set everything on fire by now, but the wealthy are still raking it in hand over fist.
So far it's basically, what, a ~5% drop over 2 days? It takes 10% to constitute a correction. So basically that. I think I saw that average 30 year mortgages also bumped up a lot to be 5.0% so that might have caused something automatic with various positions?
Or maybe people are finally realizing that nothing actually changed with the tax law and it was just a one off boost to stock buybacks that won't repeat next year?
The tax law isn't a one-off boost. It's a permanent reduction in tax rate so corps will continue reaping higher profits year after year than they otherwise would have.
The problem is those profits are starting to get eaten into by higher interest rates and, for now at least, are being obliterated by tariffs.
A permanent increase in profits is still worth a one time increase in price though.
Its more likely related to trade based expectations and interest rate increases
Edit: Remember that even while it may make sense to believe that the market is long term rational its almost certainly not short term rational. So it can respond to anything and noting. You've got to give it more than a few days to figure out was going on.
So far it's basically, what, a ~5% drop over 2 days? It takes 10% to constitute a correction. So basically that. I think I saw that average 30 year mortgages also bumped up a lot to be 5.0% so that might have caused something automatic with various positions?
Or maybe people are finally realizing that nothing actually changed with the tax law and it was just a one off boost to stock buybacks that won't repeat next year?
The tax law isn't a one-off boost. It's a permanent reduction in tax rate so corps will continue reaping higher profits year after year than they otherwise would have.
The problem is those profits are starting to get eaten into by higher interest rates and, for now at least, are being obliterated by tariffs.
A permanent increase in profits is still worth a one time increase in price though.
Agreed. A one time, permanent increase in price, just to be clear.
From my understanding, there's an interest rate increase coming (yay, bonds going up!), the markets have been doing relatively well the last couple years, and so the markets are panicking over the fear that there's a bear market that's overdue.
I made this thread a year ago anticipating a bear market, and we're still here waiting. I honestly thought Trump would've set everything on fire by now, but the wealthy are still raking it in hand over fist.
Generally speaking, I think this thread is kinda anticipating too hard, and jump at every fall but ignore every gain.
The market has had a dramatic drop the past two days bringing it back to *checks* August 16th, or thereabouts. It's noteworthy, but keep it in context. Futures are actually expecting a rebound tomorrow.
August was after almost a year of recovering from February, though. The YTD numbers aren't great.
The S&P is basically flat for the year now. Especially taking inflation into account. The January peak seems like it was basically just irrational exuberance over the tax law.
I look forward to the USA switching to using leaves as currency sometime in the next year.
Edit: And I guess to do more than point and laugh and sob, stuff like this is not going to have a positive effect on our ability to issue new debt. Sure, most potential buyers know it isn't going to happen, but the mere fact it's being brought up is definitely going to cost us a few basis points.
daveNYC on
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
0
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Here's something that got lost in the shuffle and didn't get noticed (or at least I didn't notice it, and I'm usually a news junkie about these things): back in August, China suspended crude oil imports from the US due to the American flailing idiot tariffs and hasn't restarted them. Just before the imports were suspended, China had briefly been the biggest buyer of American exported crude oil, and petroleum and related products were the second largest goods export out of the US. It's one of many kicks to the economy. So
1) Good for the environment, I guess?
2) I thought Trump and chucklefucks were trying to promote American fossil fuels, not hamstring them. I refuse to believe this is nth dimensional chess to wean the world off fossil fuels.
August was after almost a year of recovering from February, though. The YTD numbers aren't great.
The S&P is basically flat for the year now. Especially taking inflation into account. The January peak seems like it was basically just irrational exuberance over the tax law.
The thing is is that this tax "cut" will largely go towards financial institutions.
This is not a consumer-level cut. This will not improve consumer-driven products and companies.
Here's something that got lost in the shuffle and didn't get noticed (or at least I didn't notice it, and I'm usually a news junkie about these things): back in August, China suspended crude oil imports from the US due to the American flailing idiot tariffs and hasn't restarted them. Just before the imports were suspended, China had briefly been the biggest buyer of American exported crude oil, and petroleum and related products were the second largest goods export out of the US. It's one of many kicks to the economy. So
1) Good for the environment, I guess?
2) I thought Trump and chucklefucks were trying to promote American fossil fuels, not hamstring them. I refuse to believe this is nth dimensional chess to wean the world off fossil fuels.
Chalk it up to Trump being a clueless imbecile that has no idea how things actually work. I'm pretty sure that is likely the answer to anything where the end results seem counterproductive to his stated goals.
Apparently he hasn't told anyone about it. Paul Ryan's office is just referring enquiries back to the White House, and one tax policy staffer allegedly said "Guess I'll find out about it sometime on Monday".
Congress is in recess until after the elections, and can't pass any new tax legislation even if they had something ready to go.
+11
ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User, Moderatormod
Apparently he hasn't told anyone about it. Paul Ryan's office is just referring enquiries back to the White House, and one tax policy staffer allegedly said "Guess I'll find out about it sometime on Monday".
Congress is in recess until after the elections, and can't pass any new tax legislation even if they had something ready to go.
given that one of the greatest indicators that someone votes Republican is being low education/low information it isn’t surprising a tactic of simply lying and telling them what they want to hear is considered viable
The best part is Trump saying this tax cut is for the middle class. He says we're going to do middle class now, because business was before. So just an admission that they were lying about the first round of tax being for the middle class.
Of course these won't be for the middle class either, because the Republican idea of "middle class" is someone who makes over 200k.
Apparently he hasn't told anyone about it. Paul Ryan's office is just referring enquiries back to the White House, and one tax policy staffer allegedly said "Guess I'll find out about it sometime on Monday".
Congress is in recess until after the elections, and can't pass any new tax legislation even if they had something ready to go.
Yeah he's just telling obvious and provable lies so his base will like them more and vote for them.
The Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who cited Marxism as the model for his country, described “the ruthless economic exploitation and political oppression of the peasants by the landlord class” (Cotterell 2011, chap. 6). Expressing similar concerns, current American senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have stated that “large corporations . . . exploit human misery and insecurity, and turn them into huge profits” and “giant corporations . . . exploit workers just to boost their own profits.”6
The socialist narrative names the oppressors of the vulnerable, such as the bourgeoisie (Marx), kulaks (Lenin), landlords (Mao), and giant corporations (Sanders and Warren).8 Piketty (2014) concludes that the Soviet approach and other attempts to “abolish private ownership” should at least be admired for being “more logically consistent.”
Echoing historic claims about state-run enterprises, it is claimed that the government monopoly will be more productive by avoiding“waste” on administrative costs, advertising costs, and profits and will use its bargaining power to obtain better deals from healthcare providers. Modern journalists and analysts routinely claim that single-payer programs are more efficient—and thus are similar in spirit to Lenin and Mao, who justified government takeovers on the basis of the virtues of single-payer programs.
They are kind of terrible at their probably pointless job.
Its so bad that nearly every other first world country has healthier, wealthier, smarter, and happier citizens than we do. All because of programs that unleash the true evil of socialism.
+32
ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User, Moderatormod
Its so bad that nearly every other first world country has healthier, wealthier, smarter, and happier citizens than we do. All because of programs that unleash the true evil of socialism.
Its so bad that nearly every other first world country has healthier, wealthier, smarter, and happier citizens than we do. All because of programs that unleash the true evil of socialism.
yeah but they don’t have our freedom
to go bankrupt and die riddled with disease
And I'm proud to be an American
Where at least my tumour lives free
The Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who cited Marxism as the model for his country, described “the ruthless economic exploitation and political oppression of the peasants by the landlord class” (Cotterell 2011, chap. 6). Expressing similar concerns, current American senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have stated that “large corporations . . . exploit human misery and insecurity, and turn them into huge profits” and “giant corporations . . . exploit workers just to boost their own profits.”6
The socialist narrative names the oppressors of the vulnerable, such as the bourgeoisie (Marx), kulaks (Lenin), landlords (Mao), and giant corporations (Sanders and Warren).8 Piketty (2014) concludes that the Soviet approach and other attempts to “abolish private ownership” should at least be admired for being “more logically consistent.”
Echoing historic claims about state-run enterprises, it is claimed that the government monopoly will be more productive by avoiding“waste” on administrative costs, advertising costs, and profits and will use its bargaining power to obtain better deals from healthcare providers. Modern journalists and analysts routinely claim that single-payer programs are more efficient—and thus are similar in spirit to Lenin and Mao, who justified government takeovers on the basis of the virtues of single-payer programs.
They are kind of terrible at their probably pointless job.
Who on earth is this terrible report for? I'm reading it, and its just unsupported nonsense and flat out lies, but presented in a dry and dull fashion.
Like, it has a lot of graphs about how famines often followed terrible implementation of socialist policy. BUT, they don't do the classic trick of stopping the graph immediately at the failure point. Look at say, pages 19 and 20, where we see famines in China and Russia. And its true, these famines did likely occur due to poorly implemented policy (and external factors like weather) but they also show the subsequent years. Did Russia suddenly stop being socialist in 1934? Did China stop being socialist in 1962? If socialism is inherantly to blame, how do these countries which are still socialist manage to limit deaths beyond their capitalist forebears in all years AFTER the famines? Their graphs clearly show that even communism can work just fine at putting food on the table and babies in cribs, its just not QUITE as easy and trivial as planners in Russia and China imagined it would be, but that they figured out the problems after 1 year.
Then on page 23, we see Oil production in Canada vs Venezuela. Who are described as having, "Similar" oil reserves. Similar how? Canada is 10 times as big as Venezuela, with 20% more population. Canada is an advanced highly educated nation, Venezuela is far poorer. Canada is ALSO socialist, with socialized medicine and so on, and yet here they are being presented as an example of glorious capitalism being better than socialism.
Then on page 25 we have a discussion of this very strange Economic Freedom of the World index, which looks a LITTLE bit like a personal freedom index, but then for some 'odd' reason includes freedom to conduct international trade and freedom to conduct domestic trade. Why? Because those two extra categories exist only to let the US beat the nordic countries.
It just goes on and on like this. As if someones idiot cousin was paid to brew up a report noone would ever read. I keep on half expecting it to just switch to Lorum Ipsum text. Its just SO weird. The points made just show that socialism is good, and they are framed in a way which is SO dull and boring.
As a bonus, on page 28, 1 page after discussing how being so socialist and mean has been hurting the poor Norwegians so much, they immediately embark on a nonsensical tangent to prove that Nordic countries ARENT as socialist as the US already is due to their unfair taxation policies...
"As shown in table 2, the corporate income tax rate in the Nordic countries ranges from 20 to 23
percent, which was about half the U.S. Federal and State statutory rate until 2018."
"With lower thresholds for their income tax brackets, the Nordic economies apply
their highest marginal tax rate to taxpayers earning only marginally above-average income,
meaning that low- and middle-income tax filers face substantially higher average rates in the
Nordic countries than in the United States."
Shockingly, the writer has failed to realize that if you take a 10% tax from everyone, and then give everyone free healthcare you have created a massively progressive government payments structure. And forgotten that US corporations only actually pay like 10% tax.
The Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who cited Marxism as the model for his country, described “the ruthless economic exploitation and political oppression of the peasants by the landlord class” (Cotterell 2011, chap. 6). Expressing similar concerns, current American senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have stated that “large corporations . . . exploit human misery and insecurity, and turn them into huge profits” and “giant corporations . . . exploit workers just to boost their own profits.”6
The socialist narrative names the oppressors of the vulnerable, such as the bourgeoisie (Marx), kulaks (Lenin), landlords (Mao), and giant corporations (Sanders and Warren).8 Piketty (2014) concludes that the Soviet approach and other attempts to “abolish private ownership” should at least be admired for being “more logically consistent.”
Echoing historic claims about state-run enterprises, it is claimed that the government monopoly will be more productive by avoiding“waste” on administrative costs, advertising costs, and profits and will use its bargaining power to obtain better deals from healthcare providers. Modern journalists and analysts routinely claim that single-payer programs are more efficient—and thus are similar in spirit to Lenin and Mao, who justified government takeovers on the basis of the virtues of single-payer programs.
They are kind of terrible at their probably pointless job.
Who on earth is this terrible report for? I'm reading it, and its just unsupported nonsense and flat out lies, but presented in a dry and dull fashion.
Like, it has a lot of graphs about how famines often followed terrible implementation of socialist policy. BUT, they don't do the classic trick of stopping the graph immediately at the failure point. Look at say, pages 19 and 20, where we see famines in China and Russia. And its true, these famines did likely occur due to poorly implemented policy (and external factors like weather) but they also show the subsequent years. Did Russia suddenly stop being socialist in 1934? Did China stop being socialist in 1962? If socialism is inherantly to blame, how do these countries which are still socialist manage to limit deaths beyond their capitalist forebears in all years AFTER the famines? Their graphs clearly show that even communism can work just fine at putting food on the table and babies in cribs, its just not QUITE as easy and trivial as planners in Russia and China imagined it would be, but that they figured out the problems after 1 year.
Then on page 23, we see Oil production in Canada vs Venezuela. Who are described as having, "Similar" oil reserves. Similar how? Canada is 10 times as big as Venezuela, with 20% more population. Canada is an advanced highly educated nation, Venezuela is far poorer. Canada is ALSO socialist, with socialized medicine and so on, and yet here they are being presented as an example of glorious capitalism being better than socialism.
Then on page 25 we have a discussion of this very strange Economic Freedom of the World index, which looks a LITTLE bit like a personal freedom index, but then for some 'odd' reason includes freedom to conduct international trade and freedom to conduct domestic trade. Why? Because those two extra categories exist only to let the US beat the nordic countries.
It just goes on and on like this. As if someones idiot cousin was paid to brew up a report noone would ever read. I keep on half expecting it to just switch to Lorum Ipsum text. Its just SO weird. The points made just show that socialism is good, and they are framed in a way which is SO dull and boring.
Wait what? Our reserves are in the Albertan bedrock. Venezuelan reserves are in the ocean. Huh?
God it goes on and on, now we're at a discussion talking about how Nordic countries aren't socialist because the US has more pages of product regulation. Ha, and the weekly cost of owning a pickup truck in various places on page 35. Maybe this thing was just written by some kind of bot designed to create right wing nonsense with limited human input.
The Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who cited Marxism as the model for his country, described “the ruthless economic exploitation and political oppression of the peasants by the landlord class” (Cotterell 2011, chap. 6). Expressing similar concerns, current American senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have stated that “large corporations . . . exploit human misery and insecurity, and turn them into huge profits” and “giant corporations . . . exploit workers just to boost their own profits.”6
The socialist narrative names the oppressors of the vulnerable, such as the bourgeoisie (Marx), kulaks (Lenin), landlords (Mao), and giant corporations (Sanders and Warren).8 Piketty (2014) concludes that the Soviet approach and other attempts to “abolish private ownership” should at least be admired for being “more logically consistent.”
Echoing historic claims about state-run enterprises, it is claimed that the government monopoly will be more productive by avoiding“waste” on administrative costs, advertising costs, and profits and will use its bargaining power to obtain better deals from healthcare providers. Modern journalists and analysts routinely claim that single-payer programs are more efficient—and thus are similar in spirit to Lenin and Mao, who justified government takeovers on the basis of the virtues of single-payer programs.
They are kind of terrible at their probably pointless job.
Who on earth is this terrible report for? I'm reading it, and its just unsupported nonsense and flat out lies, but presented in a dry and dull fashion.
Like, it has a lot of graphs about how famines often followed terrible implementation of socialist policy. BUT, they don't do the classic trick of stopping the graph immediately at the failure point. Look at say, pages 19 and 20, where we see famines in China and Russia. And its true, these famines did likely occur due to poorly implemented policy (and external factors like weather) but they also show the subsequent years. Did Russia suddenly stop being socialist in 1934? Did China stop being socialist in 1962? If socialism is inherantly to blame, how do these countries which are still socialist manage to limit deaths beyond their capitalist forebears in all years AFTER the famines? Their graphs clearly show that even communism can work just fine at putting food on the table and babies in cribs, its just not QUITE as easy and trivial as planners in Russia and China imagined it would be, but that they figured out the problems after 1 year.
Then on page 23, we see Oil production in Canada vs Venezuela. Who are described as having, "Similar" oil reserves. Similar how? Canada is 10 times as big as Venezuela, with 20% more population. Canada is an advanced highly educated nation, Venezuela is far poorer. Canada is ALSO socialist, with socialized medicine and so on, and yet here they are being presented as an example of glorious capitalism being better than socialism.
Then on page 25 we have a discussion of this very strange Economic Freedom of the World index, which looks a LITTLE bit like a personal freedom index, but then for some 'odd' reason includes freedom to conduct international trade and freedom to conduct domestic trade. Why? Because those two extra categories exist only to let the US beat the nordic countries.
It just goes on and on like this. As if someones idiot cousin was paid to brew up a report noone would ever read. I keep on half expecting it to just switch to Lorum Ipsum text. Its just SO weird. The points made just show that socialism is good, and they are framed in a way which is SO dull and boring.
Wait what? Our reserves are in the Albertan bedrock. Venezuelan reserves are in the ocean. Huh?
Are you sure? I mean, the report had some very boring government formatting. Maybe your bedrock is very wet? Or the ocean is rockier than you think.
Look at it this way, the oil itself is in rocks. Which are underneath a liquid. If you have a liquid, inside a solid, underneath another liquid, does it really matter whether that last liquid is air or water. They are after all, pretty similar.
As another point, did you know that air and water are completely different! Air is compressible and you can breathe it. Water drowns you. Totally different things.
This has been a totally coherant post brought to you by the US government.
Posts
From my understanding, there's an interest rate increase coming (yay, bonds going up!), the markets have been doing relatively well the last couple years, and so the markets are panicking over the fear that there's a bear market that's overdue.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Or maybe people are finally realizing that nothing actually changed with the tax law and it was just a one off boost to stock buybacks that won't repeat next year?
Lol nah.
The people doing the buybacks are also people who profit from higher stock prices so nah.
The tax law isn't a one-off boost. It's a permanent reduction in tax rate so corps will continue reaping higher profits year after year than they otherwise would have.
The problem is those profits are starting to get eaten into by higher interest rates and, for now at least, are being obliterated by tariffs.
I made this thread a year ago anticipating a bear market, and we're still here waiting. I honestly thought Trump would've set everything on fire by now, but the wealthy are still raking it in hand over fist.
A permanent increase in profits is still worth a one time increase in price though.
Its more likely related to trade based expectations and interest rate increases
Edit: Remember that even while it may make sense to believe that the market is long term rational its almost certainly not short term rational. So it can respond to anything and noting. You've got to give it more than a few days to figure out was going on.
Agreed. A one time, permanent increase in price, just to be clear.
Generally speaking, I think this thread is kinda anticipating too hard, and jump at every fall but ignore every gain.
The market has had a dramatic drop the past two days bringing it back to *checks* August 16th, or thereabouts. It's noteworthy, but keep it in context. Futures are actually expecting a rebound tomorrow.
Yeah, the S&P 500 is basically where it was January 1
The S&P is basically flat for the year now. Especially taking inflation into account. The January peak seems like it was basically just irrational exuberance over the tax law.
I look forward to the USA switching to using leaves as currency sometime in the next year.
Edit: And I guess to do more than point and laugh and sob, stuff like this is not going to have a positive effect on our ability to issue new debt. Sure, most potential buyers know it isn't going to happen, but the mere fact it's being brought up is definitely going to cost us a few basis points.
1) Good for the environment, I guess?
2) I thought Trump and chucklefucks were trying to promote American fossil fuels, not hamstring them. I refuse to believe this is nth dimensional chess to wean the world off fossil fuels.
The thing is is that this tax "cut" will largely go towards financial institutions.
This is not a consumer-level cut. This will not improve consumer-driven products and companies.
Chalk it up to Trump being a clueless imbecile that has no idea how things actually work. I'm pretty sure that is likely the answer to anything where the end results seem counterproductive to his stated goals.
These lower pump prices have not reached me in southern california...
Two problems with that:
given that one of the greatest indicators that someone votes Republican is being low education/low information it isn’t surprising a tactic of simply lying and telling them what they want to hear is considered viable
Of course these won't be for the middle class either, because the Republican idea of "middle class" is someone who makes over 200k.
Yeah he's just telling obvious and provable lies so his base will like them more and vote for them.
The British politics thread had a good expression for this: all fart and no shit.
All shit and no relief.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/The-Opportunity-Costs-of-Socialism.pdf They are kind of terrible at their probably pointless job.
yeah but they don’t have our freedom
to go bankrupt and die riddled with disease
And I'm proud to be an American
Where at least my tumour lives free
Who on earth is this terrible report for? I'm reading it, and its just unsupported nonsense and flat out lies, but presented in a dry and dull fashion.
Like, it has a lot of graphs about how famines often followed terrible implementation of socialist policy. BUT, they don't do the classic trick of stopping the graph immediately at the failure point. Look at say, pages 19 and 20, where we see famines in China and Russia. And its true, these famines did likely occur due to poorly implemented policy (and external factors like weather) but they also show the subsequent years. Did Russia suddenly stop being socialist in 1934? Did China stop being socialist in 1962? If socialism is inherantly to blame, how do these countries which are still socialist manage to limit deaths beyond their capitalist forebears in all years AFTER the famines? Their graphs clearly show that even communism can work just fine at putting food on the table and babies in cribs, its just not QUITE as easy and trivial as planners in Russia and China imagined it would be, but that they figured out the problems after 1 year.
Then on page 23, we see Oil production in Canada vs Venezuela. Who are described as having, "Similar" oil reserves. Similar how? Canada is 10 times as big as Venezuela, with 20% more population. Canada is an advanced highly educated nation, Venezuela is far poorer. Canada is ALSO socialist, with socialized medicine and so on, and yet here they are being presented as an example of glorious capitalism being better than socialism.
Then on page 25 we have a discussion of this very strange Economic Freedom of the World index, which looks a LITTLE bit like a personal freedom index, but then for some 'odd' reason includes freedom to conduct international trade and freedom to conduct domestic trade. Why? Because those two extra categories exist only to let the US beat the nordic countries.
It just goes on and on like this. As if someones idiot cousin was paid to brew up a report noone would ever read. I keep on half expecting it to just switch to Lorum Ipsum text. Its just SO weird. The points made just show that socialism is good, and they are framed in a way which is SO dull and boring.
"As shown in table 2, the corporate income tax rate in the Nordic countries ranges from 20 to 23
percent, which was about half the U.S. Federal and State statutory rate until 2018."
"With lower thresholds for their income tax brackets, the Nordic economies apply
their highest marginal tax rate to taxpayers earning only marginally above-average income,
meaning that low- and middle-income tax filers face substantially higher average rates in the
Nordic countries than in the United States."
Shockingly, the writer has failed to realize that if you take a 10% tax from everyone, and then give everyone free healthcare you have created a massively progressive government payments structure. And forgotten that US corporations only actually pay like 10% tax.
Wait what? Our reserves are in the Albertan bedrock. Venezuelan reserves are in the ocean. Huh?
It's the white paper equivalent of Newt Gingrich yelling at CSpan in an empty House chamber.
Are you sure? I mean, the report had some very boring government formatting. Maybe your bedrock is very wet? Or the ocean is rockier than you think.
Look at it this way, the oil itself is in rocks. Which are underneath a liquid. If you have a liquid, inside a solid, underneath another liquid, does it really matter whether that last liquid is air or water. They are after all, pretty similar.
As another point, did you know that air and water are completely different! Air is compressible and you can breathe it. Water drowns you. Totally different things.
This has been a totally coherant post brought to you by the US government.