US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[Mandark]

Key thing is that the argument that Congress intended for state exchanges to be shut out of the subsidies is obviously, transparently specious.

Which isn't new in politics, but it definitely takes more chutzpah than normal to say this with a straight face.

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Unless most of the folks saying it sincerely believe it but I just don't want to think about that.

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[benjipwns]

I think Cannon believes it.

[Great Rumbler]

I'm sure Dick Cheney and his daughter will have something to say about that on Sunday morning news shows.

Fox jumped straight on that yesterday, actually:

http://mediamatters.org/video/2014/08/01/fox-gives-liz-cheney-a-platform-to-attack-obama/200303

[Joe Molotov]

Everything is slavery, except actual slavery, which wasn't really that bad.

[Kara]

Or wage slavery, that's voluntary interaction between persons with equal agency.

Speaking of wages, WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW that an employer can reimburse an employee up to $20 a month for commuting by bicycle and not have to report it as wage income? Why is it only $20? No army of hucksters will emerge and ride their bikes to work every day if this rule is eliminated.

Individual income tax code
Litanies of situational rules that have an immaterial effect on tax due

[benjipwns]

Everything is slavery, except actual slavery, which wasn't really that bad.

Housing, food, a job for you and future generations, stability, occasionally a self-esteem boosting auction for your services, get to work outside with your hands, free bondage sessions, less paperwork.

[Phoenix Dark]

Government housing, food, little commute time...the slaves had it just as good as Obama does now. Or is he a "slave" too.

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that's an excerpt from my upcoming e-book, Slave To The Rhythm of Liberalism: How Music, Reagan, and Markets Set Me Free.

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[benjipwns]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/02/the-coming-democratic-mid-term-collapse.html

The Coming Democratic Midterm Collapse

History tells us the “six-year itch” is a very real thing, and there’s little Obama’s Democrats can do to stave off a big loss this November.

The “Great Exception” offers you no comfort: So how did the Democrats actually pick up five House seats in 1998, and not lose a single Senate seat, at a time when the incumbent Democratic President had been pummeled all year by accusations of sexual misconduct and possible perjury? On August 17, just a few weeks before the fall campaign iced off, he had to go on national TV to offer a mea kinda sorta culpa.

Yes, part of the explanation was Republican overreach, which, combined with Independent Counsel Ken Starr's imitation of Inspector Javert, brought Clinton’s supporters to the polls.  The far more powerful explanation was the now-famous phrase pinned on James Carville’s campaign office wall: it’s the economy, stupid.

Describing the economy in 1998 makes it hard to believe we’re looking at the same country: unemployment at 4.5 percent. Inflation at 1.5 percent. Real GDP growth over 4 percent. The projected budget surplus was so high that a serious economic debate was underway that asked: should we wipe out the national debt, or do we need a bit of debt to keep credit flowing?

As for the national mood? In the fall of 1998, the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll reported that, by a 55-31 margin, the public believed things were pretty much headed in the right direction. All of which meant that while the public may not have trusted Clinton with their young daughters, they did trust him to mind the store.

Today? That same poll reports that, by a 2 1/2-1 spread, the country thinks “things are off on the wrong track.” And the economic numbers show a slow shuffle toward an anemic recovery; certainly not the kind of numbers that would persuade voters to rally behind the President’s party.

It’s not beyond possibility that Republicans could trigger such a rally, say, by seriously pushing impeachment (which may explain why Democrats react to the idea the way Brer Rabbit regarded the briar patch). But if we’re talking about probabilities, that six year curse looks very much like it will live to haunt another second-term President.

Brer Rabbit? Wow, racist.

[Kara]

That video is the essence of real time conservative LARP. I assume the tankies are what that's like on the other side of the spectrum.

In my experience there's 2 camps, the one that acts as if it's the good old days still--infiltrating groups like organized labor or immigrant rights movements, publishing (unintentionally) hilarious newspapers, et cetera, and the other one that's acts like we're living in the Bourbon Restoration and the only thing that can be done is to preserve the old ideals and force them into every nook and cranny that could be receptive, building vulgar class consciousness and waiting for the second bite at the apple.

Being reduced to Gramscian wars of position.

[benjipwns]

infiltrating groups like organized labor or immigrant rights movements

I think these guys are the worst at it, they somehow lost control of World Can't Wait after establishing it: http://www.revcom.us/

And they've since given up Marxist-Leninism for some kind of synthesis Maoism bullshit where a revolution is fine and necessary and about to happen but like you can totally vote for the Democratic Party.

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And apparently horrible web design.

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Best part, they spent tons of time on the two Jesse Jackson Presidential campaigns thinking that he was secretly one of them.

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EDIT: http://www.revcom.us/avakian/index.html

A brief introduction to BA’s new synthesis of communism ...

A more in-depth introduction to BA’s new synthesis of communism...

Because of Bob Avakian and the work he has done over several decades, summing up the positive and negative experience of the communist revolution so far, and drawing from a broad range of human experience, there is a new synthesis of communism that has been brought forward — there really is a viable vision and strategy for a radically new, and much better, society and world, and there is the crucial leadership that is needed to carry forward the struggle toward that goal.

In Bob Avakian, the Chairman of our Party, we have the kind of rare and precious leader who does not come along very often. A leader who has given his heart, and all his knowledge, skills and abilities to serving the cause of revolution and the emancipation of humanity. Bob Avakian came alive as a revolutionary in the 1960s...

[benjipwns]

One thing I've always found funny with American politics is how the openly Socialist and Communist parties can't stop having their "SPLITTERS!" moments while the Libertarian Party has kept all the same fellow traveler nutbags in the same central party for 40 years.

They just all fight at the convention over potentially statist platform minutiae and then go "we're going to not get 1% anyway so whatever" because the Best Western needs the Conference Room for a graduation party.

[Kara]

omg Bob Avakian

LEGENDARY laughs have been had at that brehs expense amongst the comrades

There's a lot of regionalism now in the newer M-L parties, PSL out west, APL in the Souf, etc. I think this owes more to the general disintegration of the old parties than factionalism per se, though some of these parties have their origins in old factional parties. (The PSL split off from the WWP I think?)

e: Ooooh, CPUSA held a party congress this year? And they discussed officially dropping M-L from their party constitution? That would shock exactly 0 people.

[benjipwns]

The Social Party's 2008 Presidential candidate celebrating his convention victory:


The CPUSA's Manhattan HQ 

[benjipwns]

This guy is awesome:

In this body of work and method and approach, in the new synthesis brought forward by Bob Avakian, there is an analogy to what was done by Marx at the beginning of the communist movement—establishing in the new conditions that exist, after the end of the first stage of the communist revolution, a theoretical framework for the renewed advance of that revolution. But today, and with this new synthesis, it is most emphatically not a matter of “back to the drawing board,” as if what is called for is throwing out both the historical experience of the communist movement and the socialist societies it brought into being and “the rich body of revolutionary scientific theory” that developed through this first wave. That would represent an unscientific, and in fact a reactionary, approach. Rather, what is required—and what Avakian has undertaken—is building on all that has gone before, theoretically and practically, drawing the positive and the negative lessons from this, and raising this to a new, higher level of synthesis.

This has often been accompanied by narrow, pragmatic, and positivist outlooks and approaches—which restrict what is relevant, or what can be determined (or is declared) to be true, to what relates to immediate experiences and struggles in which the masses of people are involved, and to the immediate objectives of the socialist state and its leading party, at any given time. This, in turn, has gone along with tendencies—which were a marked element in the Soviet Union but also in China when it was socialist—toward the notion of “class truth,” which in fact is opposed to the scientific understanding that truth is objective, does not vary in accordance with differing class interests, and is not dependent on which class outlook one brings to the pursuit of the truth. The scientific outlook and method of communism—if it is correctly taken up and applied, as a living science and not as a dogma—provides, in an overall sense, the most consistent, systematic, and comprehensive means for arriving at the truth, but that is not the same thing as saying that truth itself has a class character, or that communists are bound to arrive at the truth with regard to particular phenomena, while people who do not apply, or who even oppose, the communist outlook and method are not capable of arriving at important truths. Such views of “class truth,” which have existed to varying degrees and in various forms in the communist movement, are reductionist and vulgar materialist and run counter to the actual scientific viewpoint and method of dialectical materialism.

This new synthesis, in its many crucial dimensions (which we have only been able to briefly touch on here) has put revolution and communism on a more solid scientific foundation. As Avakian himself has emphasized:

It is very important not to underestimate the significance and potential positive force of this new synthesis: criticizing and rupturing with significant errors and shortcomings while bringing forward and recasting what has been positive from the historical experience of the international communist movements and the socialist countries that have so far existed; in a real sense reviving—on a new, more advanced basis—the viability and, yes, the desirability of a whole new and radically different world, and placing this on an ever firmer foundation of materialism and dialectics....

So, we should not underestimate the potential of this as a source of hope and of daring on a solid scientific foundation

Look at this cac:

Besides the need to sharply expose how Obama, and others parroting this stuff, are attempting to draw Black people into being consciously complicit in the crimes of “their country”—i.e., U.S. imperialism—against the oppressed masses of the world,6 it needs to be recognized and pointed out that these syrupy bromides being given voice by Obama, and by many bourgeois Black figures, on the basis of Obama's winning the presidential race, not only make the ground more favorable for, but can very quickly turn into, the menace voiced by William Bennett as things unfold, as this system continues to operate according to its essential nature and underlying dynamics, including—as we have stressed in the special issue on the Black national question7 —the ways in which it functions, and is bound to function, to keep masses of Black people, in particular youth in the inner cities, from “being whatever they strive to be,” and these youth and other basic Black masses are increasingly seen, and treated, by many of these Black bourgeois forces as dragging them down and posing an obstacle to their being what they are striving to be—more prominent functionaries and lackeys of the imperialist system.

The present role of Black bourgeois forces (as well as that of Obama), who spread this poison now must be very sharply confronted and called out for what is; and this should include directly making the analogy between some of these Black bourgeois forces and the Judenrat during the Nazi rule in Germany.8 That is, it is important to point to the potential “Judenrat role” of such Black bourgeois forces. But here let me stress potential, because it is important to be consistently scientific, and not to overstate things or engage in hyperbole—and specifically not act as if even those Black bourgeois forces who are purveying the poison referred to here are in fact already playing the role of insisting on more draconian measures (or even genocidal measures) against the masses of Black youth and others in the inner cities—except, of course, where there may be certain individuals (or forces) who are already doing that (or at least calling for more draconian measures, if not outright genocidal measures at this time), which definitely does need to be sharply called out now, and in an ongoing way.

Again, all this must be done while bringing forward, in contrast to this poison, our revolutionary line--our revolutionary-communist objectives and strategic orientation, approach and method. To a considerable extent, this can and should be done through the continuing dissemination—particularly among the Black masses but also among other sections of the people—of the special issue/statement “The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of This System and the Revolution We Need”; this should mainly be disseminated for its overall powerful content, while there is also a more specific aspect of its polemics against the kind of poison I have referred to here. (It is noteworthy that this “now, no excuses” threat is exactly what we indicated in the statement on the Black national question would accompany all this seemingly “uplifting” talk about how Black youth can now dream and strive higher because of Obama.) But there will also be a need to do this in relation to more particular ways in which this stuff comes up—in which this poison is purveyed—in an ongoing way now, particularly in the context where Obama has been elected president (and commander-in-chief).

In connection with all this—and again as a basic point of orientation—I think we should boldly popularize the following:

Do Black people need to “take responsibility”? Responsibility for what? RESPONSIBILITY FOR REVOLUTION—DEFINITELY! WE ALL NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MAKING REVOLUTION—TO EMANCIPATE HUMANITY FROM THIS WHOLE SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION.

In regard to Black people in particular, who are, in large numbers, being understandably—but of course very wrongly—swept up in “Obamamania,” in keeping with the “Malcolm X spirit” I stressed last time…we do have to put out, straight up, and struggle sharply with these masses, that they are being played. Worse yet, there is the prospect of significant numbers of them being turned, literally or at least ideologically, into the 21st-century version of “Buffalo soldiers”: enlisting with (or being more supportive of) the armed forces of their oppressors to go commit war crimes against oppressed people throughout the world—just as, after the Civil War, the “Buffalo soldiers” enlisted to help the U.S. army complete the theft of the land of the Indians (Native Americans) and carry forward the genocide against them.

We should, in our own orientation, not underestimate the potential pull of this “Buffalo soldier” phenomenon, particularly in the short run, on youth in the inner cities—and even the possibility that there could be appeals, and provisions made, for prisoners to go into the imperialist armed forces, with its “African-American commander-in-chief.” We have seen this kind of phenomenon with other oppressed people--including, in a profound irony, among Native Americans themselves. And the Black president/commander-in-chief factor could, at least in a shorter-term frame of reference, make this pull very powerful among at least significant numbers (though of course not all) of the Black youth. As was pointed out even as far back as the polemics against the Bundists (35 years ago now!),11 Black people in the U.S. have a dual position in the sense of being an oppressed people/nation (and, in large numbers, exploited and oppressed proletarians and semi-proletarians) but also, on the other side of this contradiction, as Americans. In a basic sense, the principal aspect of this contradiction is the oppressed people/nation part (and the role of masses of Black people as proletarians and semi-proletarians) but under certain circumstances the “American” aspect can strongly assert itself, and even become principal. The current situation, with Obama as a Black president/commander-in-chief (or soon to be that) is one in which this secondary—and of course very negative—aspect, is likely, at least in the short run, to be strengthened, and joining the U.S. military, to the degree that happens, will further strengthen this aspect: being part of that military does put people in the position of going out to beat up on oppressed people all over the world, and feeling like a “true American” in doing so (and this can, as it does to a significant degree among Native Americans, play into the “warrior” mentality which has no small amount of influence among Black youth—particularly but not only males). Further, there is the element of these youth getting discipline and “straightening out and straightening up” in the way the (imperialist) military does, in a certain sense, cause/force them to do—and there is the element of the effect of this on broader masses who are not joining the military but are the family, friends, etc., of those who do (the—once again very wrong and misplaced—sense of “pride” they take in this, as well as the sense of relief that these youth are getting out of the inner city life with all its very real horrors).

http://www.revcom.us/a/258/tips-for-tim-tebow-en.html 

[Kara]

Bob Avakian

Fun fact: After they lost financial support from the CPSU, the CPUSA had to become landlords in that building and rent out most of the space.

[helios]

That could have been a chapter in Snow Crash.

[Phoenix Dark]

[ZephyrFate]

The epitome of dumb.

[Oblivion]

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Just a few things to note from that video:

- Libertarians/Conservatives to this day still do not understand what a "parody" is supposed to be.
- Why isn't the girl assistant in the beginning paying any taxes? Is she an intern working for free? Wouldn't that make the dude's "Well, YOU don't pay any taxes! " comment, well you know?
- Taxation is theft, as usual.
- He cut off an entire portion of the Ed Show explaining why Phil Mickelson's not being accurate about his taxes and why it's in his interest to pay them.
- If you keep taxing all the rich people, there won't be any rich people left to tax.
- Chauffeur guy says without the free market he wouldn't have his car. But..he's a chauffeur. Isn't that supposed to be Galt guy's car? And why do they not show his face?
- So in order to teach the government a lesson, Galt guy decides to fuck over his assistant? That's the message he's trying to send?

Or wage slavery, that's voluntary interaction between persons with equal agency.

Speaking of wages, WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW that an employer can reimburse an employee up to $20 a month for commuting by bicycle and not have to report it as wage income? Why is it only $20? No army of hucksters will emerge and ride their bikes to work every day if this rule is eliminated.

Individual income tax code
Litanies of situational rules that have an immaterial effect on tax due

Hey, you seem to know a lot about this tax stuff, so I gots me a question. Is it correct to say for a business, marginal tax increases in the income tax, like the one we recently had with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, should not really have any effect on the business' employees? The way I thought it works is that, when a business collects income, and pays their employees, that income doesn't get taxed. The only income that would be effected is the income remaining AFTER a business pays off all its employees and overhead and all that other stuff. So only if you have over say $400k (which I believe is the threshold for the highest tax bracket) AFTER you pay all your business expenses, would you feel the effects of the tax hike.

Is that right?

[Kara]

Hey, you seem to know a lot about this tax stuff, so I gots me a question. Is it correct to say for a business, marginal tax increases in the income tax, like the one we recently had with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, should not really have any effect on the business' employees? The way I thought it works is that, when a business collects income, and pays their employees, that income doesn't get taxed. The only income that would be effected is the income remaining AFTER a business pays off all its employees and overhead and all that other stuff. So only if you have over say $400k (which I believe is the threshold for the highest tax bracket) AFTER you pay all your business expenses, would you feel the effects of the tax hike.

Is that right?

(Federal) corporate income tax liability is determined by taxable income (gross income less allowed deductions, special deductions, and losses carried back or forward from prior or future periods), which is what tax accounting uses in lieu of net income (income less expenses, interest, amortization, depreciation, and taxes).

Generally speaking, paying your employees is an allowed deduction, so paying them does reduce a business' taxable income (and thus tax liability).

However what you're missing is that business owners care about the after tax profit available to them. While this is highly unlikely in my experience, it's not 100% inconceivable that owner(s) would react to increased marginal tax rates by decreasing their allowed deductions, increasing their taxable income, and maintaining the amount of after tax income available to them (assuming the same gross income and deductions across periods, which is a hypothetical absurdity).

Really though this is academic and profit is extracted out of these companies as allowed deductions through a variety of conduits and paid to owner(s) so corporate tax rates are meaningless in and of themselves.

[DCharlieJP]

What threat is the US under, Liz?

There isn't a single credible threat to the US at this point in time but i guess if the US isn't smashing some small country of brown folks back doors in then somehow the whole of the US is going to fold.

[Phoenix Dark]

The House Intelligence Committee completed their Benghazi report. The results:

Among the Intelligence Committee's findings, according to Thompson:

-- Intelligence agencies were "warned about an increased threat environment, but did not have specific tactical warning of an attack before it happened."

-- "A mixed group of individuals, including those associated with al Qaeda, (Moammar) Khadafy loyalists and other Libyan militias, participated in the attack."

-- "There was no 'stand-down order' given to American personnel attempting to offer assistance that evening, no illegal activity or illegal arms transfers occurring by U.S. personnel in Benghazi, and no American was left behind."

-- The administration's process for developing "talking points" was "flawed, but the talking points reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis."

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/House-panel-No-administration-wrongdoing-in-5663509.php

itsnothing.gif

[Joe Molotov]

Wait for Darrell Issa's Extended Edition Blu-Ray, featuring scenes the studio thought too disturbing for people with a shred of decency.

[Phoenix Dark]

Obama has evolved into President Obama With Relative Minimum of Fucks to Give

oh man if he goes through with this immigration executive order/ether...oh boy. Almost guarantees an impeachment farce, forces all 2016 GOP candidates to oppose the action, and solidifies Hispanics under the democrat umbrella for another generation.

I wish Cheebs was here to break down what this means. Powerful posting, brehs

[Human Snorenado]

IMPEACHMENT II: ELECTRIC BUGALOO, COMING TO A CONGRESS NEAR YOU NEXT YEAR

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republican-gop-senate-forecast/

[Eric P]

ugh

[Joe Molotov]

Majority Leader Ted Cruz, foreign-born and a member of a minority, wow such progressive so outreach.

[Great Rumbler]

The House Intelligence Committee completed their Benghazi report. The results:

Among the Intelligence Committee's findings, according to Thompson:

-- Intelligence agencies were "warned about an increased threat environment, but did not have specific tactical warning of an attack before it happened."

-- "A mixed group of individuals, including those associated with al Qaeda, (Moammar) Khadafy loyalists and other Libyan militias, participated in the attack."

-- "There was no 'stand-down order' given to American personnel attempting to offer assistance that evening, no illegal activity or illegal arms transfers occurring by U.S. personnel in Benghazi, and no American was left behind."

-- The administration's process for developing "talking points" was "flawed, but the talking points reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis."

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/House-panel-No-administration-wrongdoing-in-5663509.php

itsnothing.gif

18 months to put together a report detailing what everyone else knew within the first week.

[Phoenix Dark]

uhhh  en banc already is a slam dunk. democrats outnumber republicans on the 4th Circuit.

[Human Snorenado]

This aggression will not stand.

[Kara]

Brooks next went on to defend his party’s base’s rigid stance against any kind of immigration reform that isn’t focus primarily on deportation, arguing that opposing a pathway to citizenship and further immigration is beneficial to all races.

focused

[Oblivion]

Hey, you seem to know a lot about this tax stuff, so I gots me a question. Is it correct to say for a business, marginal tax increases in the income tax, like the one we recently had with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, should not really have any effect on the business' employees? The way I thought it works is that, when a business collects income, and pays their employees, that income doesn't get taxed. The only income that would be effected is the income remaining AFTER a business pays off all its employees and overhead and all that other stuff. So only if you have over say $400k (which I believe is the threshold for the highest tax bracket) AFTER you pay all your business expenses, would you feel the effects of the tax hike.

Is that right?

However what you're missing is that business owners care about the after tax profit available to them. While this is highly unlikely in my experience, it's not 100% inconceivable that owner(s) would react to increased marginal tax rates by decreasing their allowed deductions, increasing their taxable income, and maintaining the amount of after tax income available to them (assuming the same gross income and deductions across periods, which is a hypothetical absurdity).

Can you give me an example that illustrates this?

[Eric P]

hmmmm, tough call this one

[Phoenix Dark]

remember when Obama said his re-election would end the anti-Obama "fever" in the republican party


these people are insane.

[Human Snorenado]

Can't wait for the Clinton Greatest Hits album in a couple years:

Whitewater!
Vince Foster!
Beeeeeeeenghaziiiiiiiiiii!

[Joe Molotov]

Can't wait for the Clinton Greatest Hits album in a couple years:

Whitewater!
Vince Foster!
Beeeeeeeenghaziiiiiiiiiii!

Lesbian! 

[CajoleJuice]

Support Are Troops

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/05/exclusive-pro-troop-charity-pays-off-tea-party-cronies-instead.html

Move America Forward has collected millions to send care packages to U.S. troops. But its assets have been used to benefit conservative political consulting firms close to its Tea Party founder.

[Phoenix Dark]

Support Are Troops

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/05/exclusive-pro-troop-charity-pays-off-tea-party-cronies-instead.html

Move America Forward has collected millions to send care packages to U.S. troops. But its assets have been used to benefit conservative political consulting firms close to its Tea Party founder.

:fathermike

[Great Rumbler]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/brooks-double-down-war-on-whites-comment

Fail to realize you said something stupid,  brehs

GOP guaranteed Whig Party status in 30 years.

"I don't know of a single Republican who has made an appeal for votes based on skin color. I don't know of one," he said.

roflmao

[Rufus]

I assumed it was intentional.

[benjipwns]

NBC slips up, reveals the truth by accident: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/08/05/nbc_reporter_on_obamas_african_summit_the_fact_that_hes_from_kenya_helps.html

[benjipwns]

Tea Party candidate loses GOP race for Mike Rogers seat to former State Senate majority leader.

Kerry Bentivolio, another tea party dude who basically lucked into Congress when Thaddeus McCotter had his breakdown, got crushed like 70-30 by some businessman.

[Phoenix Dark]

There were about 4 people voting when I got to my voting area.

[Kara]

Can you give me an example that illustrates this?

C - D - T = Z where C is gross income, D is allowed deductions, special deductions, and NOL carrying, T is tax and Z is after tax profit.

Before a tax increase Borean favorite Schlongs R Us' tax return is as such:
 
C = 1,000,000
D = 375,000
T = 212,500 (I did this computation in my head, if it's wrong .)
Z = 412,500

After a tax increase of 34% to 37% in the tax bracket Schlongs R Us resided in for the prior example (but not for any lower brackets), and assuming C and D remain constant (I know this is asinine), the company's tax return would be as such in the following year:

C = 1,000,000
D = 375,000
T = 221,200 (Again, if my math is wrong.)
Z = 403,800

If owner(s) care about returning Z from 403,800 to something close to 412,500 again*, they have to alter the figures that comprise C and D and increase their taxable income so that Z = Z again as these are the only variables under their immediate control** in a tax year.

To increase their taxable income, either C needs to increase or D needs to decrease. (Decreasing costs increases profit. )

D (specifically, allowed deductions) are more under the immediate control of owner(s) than C which (generally speaking) requires another party to voluntarily exchange (what will become) income for goods and / or services.

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While reviewing ways to lower D, owner(s) might decide to cut their cost of labor. Besides overworking employees by laying off some productive ones because they have to work or die, in a business there are usually a few family members with no-show jobs that can easily get the boot without affecting the production process to keep C constant. (i.e. They aren't really variable costs.) Though I imagine in the latter scenario the next family holiday will a bit awkward when Cousin Bradley shows up.

So let's say the owner(s) of Schlongs R Us decide to go ahead and lay off Cousin Bradley on 12/31 of the prior year who makes 14,500 a year at their no-show job in response to some Obammunist corporate tax rate increase. How would their next tax return look instead of how it did in the second calculation?

C = 1,000,000
D = 360,500
T = 226,565
Z = 412,935

412,500 ≈ 412,935



*In my experience, owner(s) care more about paying T at all than they do about Z.

**Insert rant about the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie here.

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More like rant amirite fellas.

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[Oblivion]

karakand

[Kara]

This is more like how it works irl doe.

Schlongs R Us under the current tax rates:

C = 1,000,000
D = 1,000,000
T = 0
Z = 0

What comprises D?

650,000 of normal business expenses (manufacturing schlongs is costly).
80,000 of rent paid to Holding Schlongs, LP.
115,000 of lease payments to Jerking Schlongs, LLC.
125,000 of bonuses paid to the executives (owners) of Schlongs R Us.
25,000 of interest paid to the owners of Schlongs R Us on salaries lent to the company.
5,000 of net operating loss carryforward from losses incurred 11 years ago by the company.

Holding Schlongs, LP owns the building Schlongs R Us operates out of and its partners are some of the owners of Schlongs R Us and their family.

Jerking Schlongs, LLC  owns some of the machines Schlongs R Us uses to make schlongs as well as the cars the owners drive to work in every day. Its members are owners of Schlongs R Us and their family.

Schlongs R Us' tax return (C and D being constant) after a tax increase of 34% to 37% in the tax bracket Schlongs R Us resided in for my prior post (but not for any lower brackets).

C = 1,000,000
D = 1,000,000
T = 0
Z = 0

[Human Snorenado]

WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE JOB CREATORS AT SCHLONGS R US

[Joe Molotov]

WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE JOB CREATORS AT SCHLONGS R US

I'm tired of the big box dildo retailers running the small mom & pop sex toy shops out of business.

[chronovore]

wow

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-obama-torture-20140801-story.html


Obama: 'We tortured some folks'

In startlingly blunt phrasing, President Obama on Friday acknowledged the CIA’s use of brutal interrogation tactics in the years after the Sept. 11 attack, even as he defended the agency’s top spy, who is a veteran of the era.

“We tortured some folks,” Obama said to reporters during a news conference Friday. “We did some things that were contrary to our values.”

uh

I'd have applauded if he'd said "the previous administration" instead of "we," though that'd probably come back to bite him in the ass.

[Joe Molotov]

http://www.amazon.com/Parents-Open-Carry-Brian-Jeffs/dp/1618081012/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

[Steve Contra]

The dad had his hand turned into a gun.  The evolution of the second amendment is turning arms into arms

[Joe Molotov]

The dad had his hand turned into a gun.  The evolution of the second amendment is turning arms into arms

Long live the new flesh!

[Phoenix Dark]

Probably the first recorded case of a male drawing having gay glaze.

[Great Rumbler]

Her parents open carry, but only inside the compound.

[Kara]

Don't most businesses leverage heavily by selling bonds to their own investors in order to reduce T and Z while ensuring that one of their costs of doing business includes funneling money to investors while calling it debt service?

Bonds are too inflexible (at least for the size of company I work with), they usually accomplish this with promissory notes that are altered as conditions require. (e.g. If the business hits the skids a new note will be drawn up at 0% interest for X years.) This was the 25,000 of interest paid in my second post, I should have been more explicit.

It's also necessary in S-corps because debt to shareholders is counted as shareholder basis.

[benjipwns]

 

[benjipwns]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/04/the-united-states-needs-corporate-loyalty-oaths.html

So it’s time for red-blooded Americans to take matters into our own hands. My answer is to make every corporation sign something.

Sign what? If Republicans cared about this issue, which most don’t, they would revive McCarthy-era loyalty oaths, where people were forced to swear that they weren’t communists.

...

Because oaths and pledges are a little creepy, this effort needs something else—something that comes out of the legal and business worlds: a contract. More specifically, an NDA.

Non-disclosure agreements are common in corporate America, where tens of thousands of senior managers and employees sign contracts promising to keep all sorts of information confidential. It’s often a condition of employment.

Now it’s time to change the “D” and expect the same from boards of directors—a “non-desertion agreement” with the John Hancock of every board member and CEO in the United States.

If boards thought for even a second about the long-term interests of their companies, they would summon their lawyers and sign. It’s protection against the risks of resurgent nationalism that could strip them of the many advantages (indirect government subsidies, easy access to American markets) that they currently enjoy.

...

That’s where the rest of us come in. Under my scheme, companies that sign non-desertion agreements would embed a tiny American flag or some other Good Housekeeping-type seal in their corporate insignia for all to see, just as companies during the Great Depression that agreed to Franklin Roosevelt’s recovery plan hung an emblem of a blue eagle in their windows with the legend, “We Do Our Part.”

Companies that fail to sign non-desertion agreements would face the kind of public shaming that has gone out of fashion but could come back with a vengeance: boycotts, petitions, angry shareholder meetings full of the language of patriotism.

...

Fortunately, these un-American arguments are destined to fail with the American public as the issue ripens. That’s because efforts to stop desertion aren’t populist or socialist but nationalist, a much more powerful force in American politics. Unbridled nationalism is a menace; it leads to trade wars and, all too often, real wars. But properly channeled, nationalism and patriotism are matters of the heart that cut to our deepest ideas of who we are.

With viral online organizing, the idea of non-desertion agreements could spread quickly. Then American corporations will learn that if they want to enjoy this country’s bounty, they’ll have to be good citizens and pay taxes like the rest of us.

Andrex warned us about NDA's.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Love that Joker fascism.

[close]

[Kara]

Since that article mentions it, I wish those loyalty oaths were still around so I could get out of paying self-employment taxes. (One of my largest annual business expenditures.)

http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/ArtWeb/ABCE702270CFC41E85257D1B0041C870?OpenDocument

Tax freedom.

[Human Snorenado]

Ugh, fucking life as an independent contractor

[benjipwns]

You'll take your double triple quadruple quintuple taxation and you'll like it!

"Red Inmate Gets $88.10 Monthly Security From Hand He Tried to Bite," proclaimed The Washington Daily News on October 27, 1955.2 "The $88.10-a-month payment is made to the 65 year-old Mr. Bittelman under the Government's old-age insurance program. He can cash the check and spend the money, and furthermore, it isn't subject to income tax."

Bittelman was sending $76 of each check to his wife, who had no other source of income.3 But her plight did little to soften the outrage of Bittelman's jailers, and the warden at his prison notified authorities of the apparent injustice.

If this Bittelman likes it so much why doesn't he go over to Soviet Russia and stay in one of their jails!

And typical hypocritical left, skimming off the top instead of donating every dollar to others.