Our Next President?

[Chris Coles]

Re: Our Next President?

As to US healthcare costs, we are dancing around the central issue, unwilling to speak it directly. To get costs down, lots of people in the healthcare industry need to be fired, and many others need a pay cut. Who's pay will we cut, and who will we fire? If we don't do that costs will stay high. In other nations they've zeroed out all costs and profits for health insurance companies, and for the clerks working insurance paperwork on the provider side. That's a big slice of the pie chart that stays in the customer's pocket.

Then surely, the answer to the overall problem ought to be entirely solved through the simple mechanism of good old fashioned competition? It is the lack of competition from competitive investment that lies at the heart of your healthcare problem. Nothing to do with the existing system, simply the lack of the ability to effectively compete.!

[DSpencer]

Re: Our Next President?

ok, candidates talking about national debt. the deficit. oh noes! I alluded to it earlier, maybe it should be a separate thread, but can we talk about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)? I've drank of the koolaid, and now all talk of national debt makes my eyes roll.

Federal debt. Who is it owed to? how is it paid? what are federal taxes for?

This article goes into the thinking driving Bernie and AOC's views on spending, and the progressive caucus are correspondingly getting increasingly annoyed with the centrist camp of paygo rules and narrative framing of the federal deficit.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01...netary-theory/

Why, exactly, can we not deficit spend to marshall real resources to provide medicare for all, and re-tool our infrastructure, but we can spend on the military just fine? Deficit spending only matters in as much as it leads to inflation in the sector you are spending in, at least according to MMT. Republicans seem to get this, but keep it on the down low.

You won't get any argument from me that we spend too much on the military, but that's somewhat beside the point as it relates to MMT. The problem with MMT is the connection between deficit spending and "real resources".

Reading your comment and that link, my sense is that inflation is seen as some kind of minor pitfall that's easily avoided as opposed to the obvious and existential threat that it is. Once you realize that the seemingly magical ability to pay for anything in any amount promised by MMT is constrained by the necessity of managing inflation, there's really nothing much left to get excited about. The question of the legitimacy of the Fed is a good one, but that's really a separate question from: "can't we just print the money to fund national healthcare"?

In the end, the seemingly profound revelations of MMT are already known by anyone who has a rough understanding of the monetary system. Yes, the government can create money. However, the government cannot create gasoline, bread, housing, medical services, etc. in the same way as numbers in a computer. Once you realize that is what actually needs to be created for the utopian vision to succeed, the fantasy dies.

It's not like this hasn't been tried. History is littered with horror stories of hyperinflation. Venezuela is imploding right before our very eyes.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46999668

[DSpencer]

Re: Our Next President?

That an extraordinarily good question. At first glance it seems impossible. Maybe a total of account balances for a person could be reported by banks and brokerages, but even that gets dicey for the shifting values of stocks and bonds. Real estate, fine collectibles, trust balances -fuhgetaboutit.

It's not impossible, but it makes me question whether this is really the best approach to achieve the desired goal. It certainly seems like it would be very expensive and create a huge incentive for hard to discover fraud.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Our Next President?

Then surely, the answer to the overall problem ought to be entirely solved through the simple mechanism of good old fashioned competition? It is the lack of competition from competitive investment that lies at the heart of your healthcare problem. Nothing to do with the existing system, simply the lack of the ability to effectively compete.!

It's awfully hard to compare two or three health insurance policies. People like me just cannot understand all the details and jargon, plus we don't know what future medical services we might need. I could save money with a plan that omits coverage for dialysis, but what happens if I buy that one and then my kidneys fail? Every company tries to make it's skimpy low quality product look as good as the super deluxe premium product. With a toaster I can understand and see the differences. Not so much for the coverage limits on organ transplants and the related therapies to avoid rejection.
.
.
.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Our Next President?

CNN and MSNBC LOVE Kamala Harris

Kamala is the candidate of choice for the the "establishment Dems."

Her line to win the nomination on Bovada has dropped from +450 to +400.

They also have Beto at +400. Beto has no chance, IMO.

The Dems have made it clear that they are the party of women and people of color.

They won't be nominating Beto, Biden or Bernie or Howard Schultz or any other white guys for quite some time.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Our Next President?

It's not impossible, but it makes me question whether this is really the best approach to achieve the desired goal. It certainly seems like it would be very expensive and create a huge incentive for hard to discover fraud.

Do you guys not have personal property appraisals in Ohio? It's pretty typical in New England for all personal property to be taxed, except a short list of what's exempted. Here are the Mass rules. Between the IRS calculating net worth for estate taxes and the states and towns assessing personal property values for property taxes, it seems like it shouldn't be all that expensive or difficult to me. Whether it's the best approach might be debated. But it's not like the feds couldn't ask the states and munis for the data even if they just wanted to spot audit. If it's already happening in California and the northeast, it has to already cover a bunch of spots the $50M+ crowd tends to keep fancy homes, no?

[jk]

Re: Our Next President?

That an extraordinarily good question. At first glance it seems impossible. Maybe a total of account balances for a person could be reported by banks and brokerages, but even that gets dicey for the shifting values of stocks and bonds. Real estate, fine collectibles, trust balances -fuhgetaboutit.

rmd's from ira's are based on the balances in e.g. brokerage accounts on 12/31 of each prior year. not hard.
real estate- the town i live in doesn't seem to have a problem putting a value on my house and charging property tax based on that value
fine collectibles are usually insured, and the insurance company and purchaser must see eye to eye on the values in the policies.
trust balances are no different than any other balances. the question is who is the beneficiary and what is their income
and worth.

re fraud- in the [unlikely i think] even that warren becomes president and the [even more unlikely] event she can pass a wealth tax, my hunch is that she will fund the irs at much higher levels, and audits will become more frequent for big money earners and holders.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Our Next President?

It's awfully hard to compare two or three health insurance policies. People like me just cannot understand all the details and jargon, plus we don't know what future medical services we might need. I could save money with a plan that omits coverage for dialysis, but what happens if I buy that one and then my kidneys fail? Every company tries to make it's skimpy low quality product look as good as the super deluxe premium product. With a toaster I can understand and see the differences. Not so much for the coverage limits on organ transplants and the related therapies to avoid rejection.
.
.
.

I did not make myself clear, in competition, I was not describing competition within the existing system, I meant competition by a completely new health system. You will see what I mean when I make my next post.

[Chris Coles]

The Long Term Responsibilities for the Next President

Let a UK citizen take the plunge and ask the simplest question; what platform needs to be set out to define the long term responsibilities for the next President of the United States? It is of no use whatever to try and define the person, without first setting out the challenges that must be addressed; for without the acceptance of the challenges, how do you define the attributes for the individual that has the ability to address them? You first need to change the heading from The Next President, to, The Long Term Responsibilities for the Next President.

As I see it, the overriding problem takes history right back to the end of WW2, where the economy was still in top gear, industrially, manufacturing weapons. At the highest level, no one could conceive of an successful economy that would replace that success. So the decision was taken to continue. That from then onwards, the economy of the United States was driven by war. War at any cost; War in any and every circumstance. The result is that today, you have an armed services greater than the combined resources of China and Russia. And what is today driving Trump forward? Someone has put into his head the idea of starting another proxy war with Russia in Venezuela. Yes, here in the UK we have clear history of success, when Maggie Thatcher went to war against Argentina, so history is about to repeat itself. But that forces the question; the nation is arguably bankrupt; you simply do not have the funds to continue without at some point in the very near future, facing the need to accept that you are in a dead end. So as I see it, the primary question any next President has to face is; how do we bring the Ship of State back to where we were before WW2?

You need to elect someone with the moral courage to close down Langley, and return that set of buildings back to farmland, and at the same moment, close down the more than 1,000 Lillipads; world wide groups, who have been set into place to disrupt any and every nation that has had the temerity to stand up and say No! - as a clear demonstration to the rest of the planet of the intention to act in the interest of the rest of the planet. That is not to become weak; that is to once again to become strong. In the real world, strength is not about who has the biggest gun; it is all about who has the moral courage to accept the need to change direction and lead. Leadership of the Free World demands that primary aiming point. Period!

Next challenge is to face your entire population with the need to work together; to put aside party and accept that the two party system has taken the nation to the edge of bankruptcy, both financially and morally. That they should set to to create a government of national unity; where every candidate has to accept the duty to bring about change. You challenge the people to stand up to be counted; to create that government of national unity, you must have new faces. So you need to place an absolute limit on funding. From now onwards, all candidates must be limited in their campaign spending. Fix a sum, and make it law; everyone on exactly the same basic spending and importantly; all such funding has to come from the government. They have to bring a stop to the idea that external funding has control of the Congress. From that point onwards; no other source of funds can be accepted. They have to close access to Congress by corporate funding. Then they have to close the good old revolving door, between the administration and corporate employment.

The United States must renew its commitment to national institutions that serve the people; not the corporations.

Then they have to show the courage to do what anyone, indeed, everyone; has to when in business and the funds run out; they have to officially declare the nation financially bankrupt. They have to close the funding spigot to everything involved with a bankrupt government.

That will precipitate a series of decisions that must be made.

The long term decision to remove ~ 2% of the economic capacity of the nation, the inflation target of the Federal Reserve, has resulted in a vast sum held by the Federal Reserve, more than $2T. I have already set out how that can be used to create millions of new start up businesses in RecapGRE.

Then they must create a completely new set of National Health institutions. My suggestion is that Dr. Joseph Mercola would be commanded to set about teaching the nation to Take Control of their Health. That in turn will bring about the closure of all the existing health related national institutions; which in turn, creates the momentum to start the long term process of the government of the United States bringing back into government the full responsibility for the health of the people. Mercola has made a career of showing those of us, World Wide; how to care for ourselves without drugs and by eating the right things to promote a healthy diet. So, why not now teach the whole nation?

Finally, whether the United States likes to hear this or not; you do not have a credible system of law. Instead, what you have is politically controlled law, and that applies right throughout the process of law within the United States; from the local sheriff right up to the Supreme Court. Make all political appointments illegal. Require the law professionals to determine the law and whom to appoint to deliver the law. Here in the United Kingdom, the full process of the law is entirely detached from any political interference; the next president must bring the same changes to the law in the United States. Yes, that will mean the closure of the supreme court and the complete renewal of the structure of the law throughout the nation; but this time completely driven by the legal profession; completely removed from any political interference. You have to accept that the last appointment to your supreme court completely destroyed the reputation of law in the United States.

Those decisions; to close down Langley, to create a Government of National Unity, Declare the nation bankrupt, Create millions of new small businesses, to Completely change the nature of the health of the nation and the complete renewal of the law as a profession, will in turn cause a shock wave of change throughout every level of the now morally and intellectually bankrupt national institutions.

The aim will be to bring back respect for the needs of the people; rather than the needs of either corporate interests or morally and intellectually bankrupt national institutions.

Now; who is your candidate?

[DSpencer]

Re: Our Next President?

Do you guys not have personal property appraisals in Ohio? It's pretty typical in New England for all personal property to be taxed, except a short list of what's exempted. Here are the Mass rules. Between the IRS calculating net worth for estate taxes and the states and towns assessing personal property values for property taxes, it seems like it shouldn't be all that expensive or difficult to me. Whether it's the best approach might be debated. But it's not like the feds couldn't ask the states and munis for the data even if they just wanted to spot audit. If it's already happening in California and the northeast, it has to already cover a bunch of spots the $50M+ crowd tends to keep fancy homes, no?

Nope. It sounds like a bureaucratic pain. From skimming the Mass. rules you linked, it sounds like jewelry and fine art would be exempt assuming it's at your primary residence. Maybe even a yacht is exempt because it's taxed elsewhere?

I just don't think it makes any sense to tax people in a million different ways that each require their own accounting and enforcement systems. It seems to be based on some false sense of precision that we know exactly what the effects are and we have to fine tune the tax code to achieve our perfect vision of society.

[jk]

Re: Our Next President?

Nope. It sounds like a bureaucratic pain. From skimming the Mass. rules you linked, it sounds like jewelry and fine art would be exempt assuming it's at your primary residence. Maybe even a yacht is exempt because it's taxed elsewhere?

I just don't think it makes any sense to tax people in a million different ways that each require their own accounting and enforcement systems. It seems to be based on some false sense of precision that we know exactly what the effects are and we have to fine tune the tax code to achieve our perfect vision of society.

no, it's just another way for gov'ts to raise money.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Our Next President?

Nope. It sounds like a bureaucratic pain. From skimming the Mass. rules you linked, it sounds like jewelry and fine art would be exempt assuming it's at your primary residence. Maybe even a yacht is exempt because it's taxed elsewhere?

I just don't think it makes any sense to tax people in a million different ways that each require their own accounting and enforcement systems. It seems to be based on some false sense of precision that we know exactly what the effects are and we have to fine tune the tax code to achieve our perfect vision of society.

Weird.

The yacht thing is different. Mass does tax them, but as vehicles, which are subject to higher rates. Rhode Island, trying to keep the blue blood Newport thing alive, exempts them from tax, but taxes a shitty 20 year old Toyota at 3 times the rate than MA. John Kerry got caught stashing his yacht in Rhode Island trying to avoid the taxes a few years back. Of course, most of the mega-rich yachts in Newport Harbor are flying Caymans flags anyways. I still say we take one of those old WWII aircraft carriers that sat in moth balls just up the harbor forever and send them down there. Watch how fast the bank secrecy and yacht registry files suddenly stop being secrets.

Anyways, I'm surprised you guys don't have it. But I looked it up and I guess 8 states don't, mostly in the mid-atlantic or midwest. Today I learned something.

[DSpencer]

Re: Our Next President?

no, it's just another way for gov'ts to raise money.

If raising money is the only consideration it is vastly simpler to raise the income tax from X to Y instead of creating an entirely new system of taxation.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: The Long Term Responsibilities for the Next President

Let a UK citizen take the plunge and ask the simplest question...

Chris I finally found a few moments to read your post carefully. Your central points are unarguable.
Sadly, changes as sweeping as those take generations to accomplish. I like the term "boiling the ocean".
I prefer to look at the first small step.

[jk]

Re: Our Next President?

If raising money is the only consideration it is vastly simpler to raise the income tax from X to Y instead of creating an entirely new system of taxation.

income tax taxes income. wealth/property tax taxes wealth. those 2 things may be very different and one doesn't substitute for the other. a very wealthy person, e.g., might generate very high income solely from tax-free bonds. this takes a lot of wealth.

also they have different political valences.