Our Next President?

[dcarrigg]

Re: Our Next President?

Not to mention property law. How many times have IP rights or the dead hand of trust limits been extended? I think Florida's up to 360 years now the living must suffer the will of the dead. Was what? 21 years not so long ago? Then count every single property crime on the books and all the police-work to enforce them, right down to loitering and trespassing. Then count all the people who work to survey, plot and deed land for people like John Malone or Ted Turner who own more of it than several of the smaller 50 states, who undoubtably bought the majority of it sight unseen. It's not possible for one person to amass billions worth of property, never-mind allow their children to inherit it, without an army of soldiers, police, judges, and bureaucrats on the ground to stop other people from using it or taking it. Imagine "owning" a non-contiguous area of land the size of Delaware or Connecticut. You gonna keep trespassers out yourself? Is it possible to even have a clue what you own at that point? I mean, someone who contracts for someone who works for someone who works for the owner might have a clue, maybe. But we're a long way away from yeomanry here. We're talking 10 times bigger than the Queen's Crown Estate in the UK. And I fully expect to see someone with 10 times that within a decade or two. Just an area the size of New York state "belonging" to one man. It's only a natural outcome of accelerating inequality. Especially if property law is considered absolute and there aren't methods to decay and recycle ownership so others might use things. We're already at 6 generation trusts and 4 generation IP and massive landholder property tax exemptions as common stuff. Soon we'll be closer to one man owning everything than everyone having an equal share. Might have already passed it. And there are no signs of slowing down.

Land is a zero sum game. Power is a zero sum game. Don't think the founding fathers established a republican form of government in the USA just so that tens of millions could live in one-room apartments, cramped by 1790s standards, and other men could have 10 times the UK landholdings of King George, areas bigger than several of the constituent states of the union. Top 100 all but certainly own land bigger than all New England combined now. And it's getting worse every year. Does anyone think continuing down that path ends well?

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: Our Next President?

Not to mention property law. How many times have IP rights or the dead hand of trust limits been extended? I think Florida's up to 360 years now the living must suffer the will of the dead. Was what? 21 years not so long ago? Then count every single property crime on the books and all the police-work to enforce them, right down to loitering and trespassing. Then count all the people who work to survey, plot and deed land for people like John Malone or Ted Turner who own more of it than several of the smaller 50 states, who undoubtedly bought the majority of it sight unseen. It's not possible for one person to amass billions worth of property, never-mind allow their children to inherit it, without an army of soldiers, police, judges, and bureaucrats on the ground to stop other people from using it or taking it. Imagine "owning" a non-contiguous area of land the size of Delaware or Connecticut. You gonna keep trespassers out yourself? Is it possible to even have a clue what you own at that point? I mean, someone who contracts for someone who works for someone who works for the owner might have a clue, maybe. But we're a long way away from yeomanry here. We're talking 10 times bigger than the Queen's Crown Estate in the UK. And I fully expect to see someone with 10 times that within a decade or two. Just an area the size of New York state "belonging" to one man. It's only a natural outcome of accelerating inequality. Especially if property law is considered absolute and there aren't methods to decay and recycle ownership so others might use things. We're already at 6 generation trusts and 4 generation IP and massive landholder property tax exemptions as common stuff. Soon we'll be closer to one man owning everything than everyone having an equal share. Might have already passed it. And there are no signs of slowing down.

Land is a zero sum game. Power is a zero sum game. Don't think the founding fathers established a republican form of government in the USA just so that tens of millions could live in one-room apartments, cramped by 1790s standards, and other men could have 10 times the UK landholdings of King George, areas bigger than several of the constituent states of the union. Top 100 all but certainly own land bigger than all New England combined now. And it's getting worse every year. Does anyone think continuing down that path ends well?

I've been thinking a lot about wealth redistribution today. I picked up this book the other day. It makes the case that debt cancellation was the basis of all historic civilizations. What would a debt cancellation look like today? If the debt was government debt then the government could simply declare the debt canceled and no obvious harm would be done to the public or the idea of debts as inviolable obligations. So in the case of student loans in the US. Federal student loans could be canceled. Even rescheduling student loans at current rates of interest would be an enormous improvement in the economy. This is what I think will happen if Trump runs again. Let's compare a high inflation over a short period of about 5 years ( EJ has proposed something similar once). What is the intent here? Are we trying to restore balance to the same level of wealth distribution that existed in ancient Babylon? France before the revolution? The US in 1850? 1950? 2006? What? How likely is this to succeed?

Cancelling federal debt like this doesn't change the balance much. It has a big impact on working class people with student loan debt, but retirees and people living on income from investment would not be affected. Major debt holders like banks would complain but ultimately they too would not be affected. Your typical billionaire wouldn't even notice. They might even welcome the move. The difference between inflation and limited debt cancellation is that inflation would impact banks, pension funds and wealthy individuals. If your intent is to reverse the wealth inequality than this looks like the way to do it. Inflation hits all debt not just student loans. The key here is control of the gold. If any billionaire manages to sequester a few thousand ounces of gold before the high ( note I didn't say hyper) inflation, the entire exercise fails. Debt cancellation by itself or inflation don't suffice. Wealth inequality is systemic.

This issue of wealth inequality has some levels to it. For instance I listened to Russell Napier talk about china. He said that china dictates the world inflation rate. He also predicts a much higher rate of inflation soon. This is interesting because India is predicted to surpass China as the most populous country soon. The Indian people collectively hold the largest private stocks of gold. Imagine the poorest people on earth suddenly becoming the richest. Geo-politically do you think that Donald Trump would put up with that? I can see him picking a fight with both India and China.

[shiny!]

Re: Our Next President?

The problem is last-mile. City can do more damage by ripping out lead pipes and updating infrastructure. Housing pipes that connect to the street mains in old neighborhoods are often lead. If the house is owned by broke people, they can't afford to redo that part. And two different metals together = battery = much worse lead leeching. Worse? Landlords have zero incentive to upgrade the pipes. They don't drink the water. Why blow thousands to make it clean?

This problem is pervasive. It's a problem for EV adoption. It's a problem for solar adoption. It's a problem for even basic insulation and efficiency. It's a problem for any updating of residential infrastructure whatsoever. 100 years ago, government sent guys around, and they did real work on real properties to update them, electrify them, connect them to water and sewer systems, etc. Now government only offers tax incentives. If we did electrification in the USA like we're doing 21st century stuff, a good chunk of the country still would be living in the dark. The last mile's always hard. But it's impossible to do with just markets and tax incentives.

I think it's short-sighted too. For the few extra million short term it'd cost a city to do it, image how much you'd save on the back end social services from the lead poisoning. Ditto on overall electric costs if you just went around insulating everything, especially at peak. It's basic bread and butter stuff. But somebody might get something for free. So it's verboten under neoliberal orthodoxy.

Depressing, but true, as so much truth is these days.

Just think about all the plastic in landfills and the ocean that could be eliminated if we eliminated 90% of bottled water. Even if the last mile remains a problem, our water treatment plants still need major upgrades. Outdated water systems can't keep up with all the pharmaceutical drugs that are being peed down the toilets. They're in tap water and are effecting wildlife in rivers and streams.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journ...FC9687F7215472

[dcarrigg]

Re: Our Next President?

I've been thinking a lot about wealth redistribution today. I picked up this book the other day. It makes the case that debt cancellation was the basis of all historic civilizations. What would a debt cancellation look like today? If the debt was government debt then the government could simply declare the debt canceled and no obvious harm would be done to the public or the idea of debts as inviolable obligations. So in the case of student loans in the US. Federal student loans could be canceled. Even rescheduling student loans at current rates of interest would be an enormous improvement in the economy. This is what I think will happen if Trump runs again. Let's compare a high inflation over a short period of about 5 years ( EJ has proposed something similar once). What is the intent here? Are we trying to restore balance to the same level of wealth distribution that existed in ancient Babylon? France before the revolution? The US in 1850? 1950? 2006? What? How likely is this to succeed?

Cancelling federal debt like this doesn't change the balance much. It has a big impact on working class people with student loan debt, but retirees and people living on income from investment would not be affected. Major debt holders like banks would complain but ultimately they too would not be affected. Your typical billionaire wouldn't even notice. They might even welcome the move. The difference between inflation and limited debt cancellation is that inflation would impact banks, pension funds and wealthy individuals. If your intent is to reverse the wealth inequality than this looks like the way to do it. Inflation hits all debt not just student loans. The key here is control of the gold. If any billionaire manages to sequester a few thousand ounces of gold before the high ( note I didn't say hyper) inflation, the entire exercise fails. Debt cancellation by itself or inflation don't suffice. Wealth inequality is systemic.

This issue of wealth inequality has some levels to it. For instance I listened to Russell Napier talk about china. He said that china dictates the world inflation rate. He also predicts a much higher rate of inflation soon. This is interesting because India is predicted to surpass China as the most populous country soon. The Indian people collectively hold the largest private stocks of gold. Imagine the poorest people on earth suddenly becoming the richest. Geo-politically do you think that Donald Trump would put up with that? I can see him picking a fight with both India and China.

These are all interesting thoughts. What I think is probably needed at any level is a popular re-thinking of what private property is and what purpose it serves. Popular conceptions of it are extremely reactionary now by almost any historical standards. Folks who say "Forgive us our debts" daily in the Lord's Prayer turn around and preach the prosperity gospel and maximum punishment for debtors. When I talk to younger people, the very idea that patents or trademarks should ever expire seems beyond their comprehension. They just figure everything is owned by fictional legal entities in perpetuity. Ditto with inheritance. Like the frog, being slowly boiled, they extended the length of these things piece by piece until nobody alive remembers that six generation trusts and perpetual intellectual property rights are not normal. The ultimate goal is obvious: To allow all property to stay in bloodlines in perpetuity untaxed. It's more feudal than capitalist, really. But when that type of thing seems normal to people, they're even willing to stomach the elimination of bankruptcy protections (see student loans in the US). In that type of environment, is any debt jubilee possible? Even just getting back to the property laws of 20 years ago would be a hell of an accomplishment for 99.99% of Americans.

[BK]

Re: Our Next President?

Isn't a debt someone else asset? In a world before mutual funds and etfs I can see a debt Jubilee working. But, how many pension schemes own Sallie Mae Bonds or etc??

What am I missing?

[dcarrigg]

Re: Our Next President?

Depressing, but true, as so much truth is these days.

Just think about all the plastic in landfills and the ocean that could be eliminated if we eliminated 90% of bottled water. Even if the last mile remains a problem, our water treatment plants still need major upgrades. Outdated water systems can't keep up with all the pharmaceutical drugs that are being peed down the toilets. They're in tap water and are effecting wildlife in rivers and streams.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journ...FC9687F7215472

It's absolutely true. Other problem is that since existing treatment centers are down the gravity stream, lots of them flood out, and it increases the overall property damage of extreme weather events exponentially, along with tap water disruptions due to fecal coliform contamination. If former 100 year floods start coming at intervals closer to 10, it just compounds the problem. It's not only filtration and treatment methods that have improved either. Old pumps are wildly inefficient and use much more electricity than necessary. I think you're absolutely right that it's another spot where there has been underinvestment. We've set up a system in which there's trillions of dollars to invest in apps and luxury condos and weapons and advanced cruise control systems, but basic infrastructure gets no love.

I like to drive. I've never made it west of Iowa by car (not without flying and renting). But I've made it up and down the eastern seaboard from Nova Scotia to Florida, out through the midwest, everywhere in between. The lack of capital is plainly noticeable. Just looking around at the state of people's roofs and out buildings, the railroad ties holding up rusty bridges, the aging sewer systems still stamped with those letters W.P.A. There are little bubbles of wealth around the whole foods with new luxury condos and McMansions and new infrastructure, but a mile down the road it's decrepit again, and you're lucky to get a price rite or a dollar general, luckier still for walmart. There's still a few places that are in between, clinging to universities or some odd industry that's still there despite some long odds. But even these places are starting to look rougher, and the lack of investment is creeping from the outside in. And it's interesting to me how much of it is obviously political. Took a ferry across Lake Champlain a couple years ago. Vermont side was very posh and up to date. New York side was very...not. Same beautiful landscape, rolling hills and farms. But rotten farmhouses. Bombed out silos. Abandoned schools. Terrible roads full of cracks and holes. Vermont's kind of the opposite on the other side. No money in the northeast part. Very old towns and very old people maybe keep one grocery store and restaurant alive--moldy siding, stop signs faded to white, one corner of a fence still standing, blue tarp on the roof, bars on the windows of the convenience store with broken old gas pumps out front, rusty old railroad bridges--that type of thing. Cross into Quebec and there's investment again. It's not that the land's useless.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Our Next President?

Direct federal student loans aren't sally mae, are they? Thought they're the majority and functionally direct loans from feds to students, and feds are the only ones holding the asset.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Our Next President?

I understand what you're saying. But what is the goal in progressive taxation? Do we really object to people earning too much money or having too much money? If it's the latter, then why not just get rid of the income tax and only tax wealth? Or stop offering tax-free bonds and categorize all income the same so that if you earn returns on your wealth they are all taxed. Or tax spending through a higher sales tax.

I just have a hard time believing that achieving a specific tax goal for society requires having a small tax on basically everything.

The tax code is just insane. Here's a little anecdote:

My company had a sales tax audit a few years ago. One of the findings was that our vendor for coffee and tea wasn't collecting sales tax. Strangely, in Ohio at least, even though the vendor is required to collect the sales tax, it's still the customer who owes it if it's not collected. So they had to go back through our invoices to determine what we owed. Sounds simple enough, but not quite that simple.

Food isn't taxed in Ohio. Well, it is taxed if you dine-in at a restaurant, but carry-out and grocery is not taxed. So why do we owe taxes? Aren't coffee and tea considered food? Yes, they are! But...only sometimes. Bottled/canned coffee, without milk (or milk substitute), is not food. But if you add milk, now it is food. But a CUP of coffee IS food, even without milk. Unless, it's artificially sweetened, then it's not food. Unless it also contains milk, then it is food.

You can serve a customer a cup of coffee and it's not taxable. You can provide them with sugar and it's still not taxable. If you add the sugar for them, now you've created a soft drink which is always taxable. If you then add some milk, you've turned the soft drink back into food and it's no longer taxable.

So they had to go through every invoice, line by line, to determine whether 10 pods of hazelnut or whatever contained sweetener and/or milk and then assess the tax accordingly.

I'd love to hear the precise social purpose achieved by taxing those who drink their coffee with sugar, but not those who drink it black or those who drink it with cream and sugar. I'd also like to understand how long I could survive drinking only a "food" such as black coffee vs a "non-food" such as a juice drink containing less than 50% juice.

Everything is designed to increase GDP, use any method imaginable to increase the need for debate and or prevarication; this is how you slowly establish bureaucratic feudalism. Here in the UK we have a law called Tree Preservation; today, a bureaucrat walks into your garden, you have no recourse to stop him, and he lists trees for preservation; from that moment you have to ask him for permission to even trim a small branch that has tips on the ground.....

When bureaucrats take control of the law; you lose control of your nation.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Our Next President?

It's absolutely true. Other problem is that since existing treatment centers are down the gravity stream, lots of them flood out, and it increases the overall property damage of extreme weather events exponentially, along with tap water disruptions due to fecal coliform contamination. If former 100 year floods start coming at intervals closer to 10, it just compounds the problem. It's not only filtration and treatment methods that have improved either. Old pumps are wildly inefficient and use much more electricity than necessary. I think you're absolutely right that it's another spot where there has been underinvestment. We've set up a system in which there's trillions of dollars to invest in apps and luxury condos and weapons and advanced cruise control systems, but basic infrastructure gets no love.

I like to drive. I've never made it west of Iowa by car (not without flying and renting). But I've made it up and down the eastern seaboard from Nova Scotia to Florida, out through the midwest, everywhere in between. The lack of capital is plainly noticeable. Just looking around at the state of people's roofs and out buildings, the railroad ties holding up rusty bridges, the aging sewer systems still stamped with those letters W.P.A. There are little bubbles of wealth around the whole foods with new luxury condos and McMansions and new infrastructure, but a mile down the road it's decrepit again, and you're lucky to get a price rite or a dollar general, luckier still for walmart. There's still a few places that are in between, clinging to universities or some odd industry that's still there despite some long odds. But even these places are starting to look rougher, and the lack of investment is creeping from the outside in. And it's interesting to me how much of it is obviously political. Took a ferry across Lake Champlain a couple years ago. Vermont side was very posh and up to date. New York side was very...not. Same beautiful landscape, rolling hills and farms. But rotten farmhouses. Bombed out silos. Abandoned schools. Terrible roads full of cracks and holes. Vermont's kind of the opposite on the other side. No money in the northeast part. Very old towns and very old people maybe keep one grocery store and restaurant alive--moldy siding, stop signs faded to white, one corner of a fence still standing, blue tarp on the roof, bars on the windows of the convenience store with broken old gas pumps out front, rusty old railroad bridges--that type of thing. Cross into Quebec and there's investment again. It's not that the land's useless.

Though nothing like as extensive, my travels between Washington DC and New York via railway confirm the same viewpoint; everything in a very poor state of repair. Best was Houston, where a quarter mile from the centre you can find wooden hovels, streets of them. It was, in large part, these experiences that drove my own thinking towards the concept of recapitalisation of the grass roots economy.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Our Next President?

Though nothing like as extensive, my travels between Washington DC and New York via railway confirm the same viewpoint; everything in a very poor state of repair. Best was Houston, where a quarter mile from the centre you can find wooden hovels, streets of them. It was, in large part, these experiences that drove my own thinking towards the concept of recapitalisation of the grass roots economy.

Yeah, Chris, I've often thought about your capital spillway idea. The need for it, or something like it, grows more apparent by the day. It does't surprise me that your travels here kicked off some of your thinking. Death, but for the grace of a few federal dollars that keep the roads and post office alive, becomes a good chunk of this country's towns.

The truly terrible thing is that these are some really good places with really affordable homes and that were built in good places with good resources. These are exactly the types of places one might imagine a younger generation locked out of housing markets by high prices might move into and make something out of. The type of place where you can still buy a big old house for $150k or rent a big old storefront on one of the main corners in the neighborhood or town for $200/mo and turn it into something interesting. And lots are built on rail lines or ports or other infrastructure that still exists. Real potential is there.

But capital's so concentrated that these places simply become poor, and it drives demand so low that the main street corner commercial real estate's all empty. What index fund or VC or PE firm or hedge fund or mutual fund ever gave a crap about the smaller companies that made these places? Lots of money funnels into the S&P 500. Much less for the 501st on the list. And so on. More sophisticated players know that, and so the prophecy self-fulfills.

I also got to drive around most of Germany, at least most of the west of the country. It's night and day compared with the US. You may know the country better than I. But they too talk about a rust belt, 'Rhurgebiet.' Maybe one of their most famous rust belt towns is Bochum. They've got their own sad songs about it. But here's the truth that would stand up and smack any American in the face: Bochum looks a lot more like Boston or one of the 'winner cities' in the US than it looks like Cleveland or Buffalo. And Germany's a poorer country overall! They're simply better at structuring their corporate and finance law to promote mid-sized businesses rather than winner-take-all, and generally they spread things out a little more evenly. So their "Rust Belt" looks like a tech hub in the US. I don't know if this holds true in the former East Germany, and I suspect it does not from everything people have told me. Never got to rightfully travel the byways over there.

The real shame of it is there's a lot of potential going untapped in America. But we're so hooked on winner-take-all systems, defending monopolies and duopolies, and prone to believing lies, that as a people we refuse to realize it.

One other thing I noticed about the mid-size towns that are doing relatively okay in the US (at least on the east side of the continental divide), is that they're not only clinging to a university or an industry (often Defense-related), but they all have fought hard to keep most of the national retail and restaurant outlets out of town. Conservative places, liberal places, doesn't rightfully matter. If they successfully fended off the vultures and kept local businesses with local owners maintaining economic activity in the local economy rather than shunt it all down to Bentonville to move some heirs and heiresses a few spots up the Forbes list, they tend to have done better. I'm not sure if it's the chicken or the egg. But I am pretty sure if you give a damn about your town, unless you live in the orbit of a major metro that's teeming with capital anyways, fighting those suckers tooth and nail at the local level is probably a smart move. These places simply weren't designed to handle some absentee executive from 1,500 miles away who has never even heard of the town owning the only grocery store.

GRG's right in that Americans are good at scaling things up. But the method doesn't have to be centrally planned monopoly. At least the McDonalds on the exit ramp might have a local franchisee. People got so used to national branding they've come to accept far off central command and control ownership of local resources.

[DSpencer]

Re: Our Next President?

lol. loved the anecdote.

amused but disheartened by the idea of state employees spending hours going through your invoices to make these penny level determinations.

On top of that we had our accountant billing by the hour to sit there with them during the audit. Definitely funny but sad.

In the same way, how are citizens and politicians supposed to meaningfully debate and discuss the tax code when even a single tax is filled with endless minutiae? I'm convinced that we could achieve nearly identical results if we simplified the tax code down to 1/10th the current size.

As mentioned by thrifty, there's all kinds of lobbying potential as well. Who has time to make closing the frappuccino loophole a priority?

[DSpencer]

Re: Our Next President?

I've been thinking a lot about wealth redistribution today. I picked up this book the other day. It makes the case that debt cancellation was the basis of all historic civilizations. What would a debt cancellation look like today? If the debt was government debt then the government could simply declare the debt canceled and no obvious harm would be done to the public or the idea of debts as inviolable obligations. So in the case of student loans in the US. Federal student loans could be canceled. Even rescheduling student loans at current rates of interest would be an enormous improvement in the economy. This is what I think will happen if Trump runs again. Let's compare a high inflation over a short period of about 5 years ( EJ has proposed something similar once). What is the intent here? Are we trying to restore balance to the same level of wealth distribution that existed in ancient Babylon? France before the revolution? The US in 1850? 1950? 2006? What? How likely is this to succeed?

Cancelling federal debt like this doesn't change the balance much. It has a big impact on working class people with student loan debt, but retirees and people living on income from investment would not be affected. Major debt holders like banks would complain but ultimately they too would not be affected. Your typical billionaire wouldn't even notice. They might even welcome the move. The difference between inflation and limited debt cancellation is that inflation would impact banks, pension funds and wealthy individuals. If your intent is to reverse the wealth inequality than this looks like the way to do it. Inflation hits all debt not just student loans. The key here is control of the gold. If any billionaire manages to sequester a few thousand ounces of gold before the high ( note I didn't say hyper) inflation, the entire exercise fails. Debt cancellation by itself or inflation don't suffice. Wealth inequality is systemic.

This issue of wealth inequality has some levels to it. For instance I listened to Russell Napier talk about china. He said that china dictates the world inflation rate. He also predicts a much higher rate of inflation soon. This is interesting because India is predicted to surpass China as the most populous country soon. The Indian people collectively hold the largest private stocks of gold. Imagine the poorest people on earth suddenly becoming the richest. Geo-politically do you think that Donald Trump would put up with that? I can see him picking a fight with both India and China.

As always, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Sure, the federal government can cancel debts owed to it, student loan or otherwise. However, that means they have less revenue to pay for things. The MMT crowd will point out that they can simply print the extra money they need to pay for things. That's true, but what is the result? Inflation.

That doesn't necessarily mean that plan doesn't suit your political goals, but it's not true to say that there's no effect of the government cancelling debt. Some people might say that inflation is a good thing. For example, they might look favorably on a plan to send a $100,000 bill to every US citizen. Sure, it would cause massive inflation, but if someone had zero dollars before, they will now have $100,000. Of course it won't be worth as much in terms of purchasing power, but it's better than nothing, right?

It's worth keeping in mind that who gains or loses from inflation is not necessarily clear-cut. Jeff Bezos probably wouldn't suffer too much under inflation because his wealth is mostly stock in Amazon. The stock price would go up like other prices. The prices for goods sold on Amazon would go up. However, a billionaire whose wealth is mostly in bonds (debt) is probably going to take a big hit. What about the workers in Amazon's warehouses? They better hope they can get pay raises that track with inflation or their living standards are going to plummet. Someone living on some kind of pension/fixed income stream is screwed unless it adjusts for inflation.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: Our Next President?

As always, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Sure, the federal government can cancel debts owed to it, student loan or otherwise. However, that means they have less revenue to pay for things. The MMT crowd will point out that they can simply print the extra money they need to pay for things. That's true, but what is the result? Inflation.

That doesn't necessarily mean that plan doesn't suit your political goals, but it's not true to say that there's no effect of the government cancelling debt. Some people might say that inflation is a good thing. For example, they might look favorably on a plan to send a $100,000 bill to every US citizen. Sure, it would cause massive inflation, but if someone had zero dollars before, they will now have $100,000. Of course it won't be worth as much in terms of purchasing power, but it's better than nothing, right?

It's worth keeping in mind that who gains or loses from inflation is not necessarily clear-cut. Jeff Bezos probably wouldn't suffer too much under inflation because his wealth is mostly stock in Amazon. The stock price would go up like other prices. The prices for goods sold on Amazon would go up. However, a billionaire whose wealth is mostly in bonds (debt) is probably going to take a big hit. What about the workers in Amazon's warehouses? They better hope they can get pay raises that track with inflation or their living standards are going to plummet. Someone living on some kind of pension/fixed income stream is screwed unless it adjusts for inflation.

If your point is that wealth redistribution will not happen short of a socialist revolution then I tend to agree. I'm expecting a financial crash and mass unemployment long before that happens. You seem to be hinting that the end game here is a feudalistic system. Well, feudalism was a response to the collapse of the roman empire.

[DSpencer]

Re: Our Next President?

If your point is that wealth redistribution will not happen short of a socialist revolution then I tend to agree. I'm expecting a financial crash and mass unemployment long before that happens. You seem to be hinting that the end game here is a feudalistic system. Well, feudalism was a response to the collapse of the roman empire.

Those conclusions are way deeper than any point I was trying to make.

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: Our Next President?

Good call, on the surface. A newcomer with a relatively blank slate onto which bits and pieces of voter preference can be written as the campaign goes on, ala Obama, starting with "opposite of Trump" positioning of "love for each other and for our country." Ideal as a marketing campaign president for more of the same policies as Bush and Obama but without the Trump crazy.

Almost everyone will welcome a return to the regular scheduled programming, except for this: Kamala Harris’s Trump-Size Tax Plan

Warren lawyers the question of taxes: How high does Elizabeth Warren want to raise taxes? Her challenger wants to know.

It is on the question of taxation that electability hinges.

The reality of mounting federal government debt resulting from unrealistic tax policy will remain in the periphery of the conversation until after the election.

Warren if she continues to play her cards this way could win, and at least won't have to got back on a "read my lips" pledge when she's forced to raise taxes.

Kamala Harris almost sank her presidency before the campaign is started. She basically wants to eliminate all private health insurance.

Not to mention using her good looks and being a female to apparently sleep her way to the top publicly with Mayor Willie Brown? I think that is comical given the current #metoo socio-political environment.