Coronavirus

[MrSparkle]

I absolutely believe it on the state level (we see IL suffer because of its high taxes), but internationally... where do they pack up and go?

Serious question- I’m economically illiterate. Seems like all the other safe/stable countries in the world have high taxes (EU) or really nationalistic economies (JP, China, etc.). Otherwise you are gambling and trading with setting up base in completely unstable nations with wild governments and huge income disparities. Will they go to Russia, Brazil, India? Only so many people fit in Singapore.

Lots of companies already do this. They find a country where they incorporate in and keep all their profits off US books. There are limits about how they bring money into the country when they do that though, so it isn't a perfect loop hole, but it's a difficult one to close entirely.

Right, but aren't off-shore accounts/corps different then entirely leaving?

[dice]

i specifically said that the corporate tax would be ZERO

Okay, so every wealthy person renounces their citizenship and moves somewhere else. That's a much bigger loop hole actually.

which would not happen, and i think you know that. rich people across the globe live in nations with high tax rates. and yet there are many nations with very low tax rates they could move to. they don't. moreover, there simply isn't much evidence that, up to a certain point, higher tax rates have much impact on economic activity on a national level. not in the US (we've had plenty of instances of tax rates being significantly adjusted) and not worldwide. and 50% is not that level

plenty of nations that have both higher incomes and MUCH higher taxes than the USA

[Ccwatercraft]

Really good pivot from Trump today. Did not say anything political.

And really important policies being announced right now.

yesterday and today were both excellent, the round table thing as well.

[League Circles]

i specifically said that the corporate tax would be ZERO

Okay, so every wealthy person renounces their citizenship and moves somewhere else. That's a much bigger loop hole actually.

You may be able to get around this by severely limiting what types of property corporations are allowed to hold. I'll admit I haven't thought through all the details though.

[Friend_Of_Haley]

This tax/UBI is a little bit of an odd tangent, but I'll jump in and say I think the only way it would work is with a VAT at a relatively high rate, say 20-25%. I'd actually be totally cool with a trade off corporate income and most individual income tax (say anything below 300,000) in exchange for a VAT and broader safety net (whether that's UBI, M4A, etc). Administratively very efficient and really doesn't have the tax avoidance pitfalls. It is a bit of an economic drag, including on labor, which is the bad part. But if we can accept slower growth, with hopefully less bubbles, it's a good trade I think. Then focus other policy areas to encourage the shrinking of the wealth gap.

[TheStig]

i specifically said that the corporate tax would be ZERO

Okay, so every wealthy person renounces their citizenship and moves somewhere else. That's a much bigger loop hole actually.

which would not happen, and i think you know that. rich people across the globe live in nations with high tax rates. and yet there are many nations with very low tax rates they could move to. they don't. moreover, there simply isn't much evidence that, up to a certain point, higher tax rates have much impact on economic activity on a national level. not in the US (we've had plenty of instances of tax rates being significantly adjusted) and not worldwide. and 50% is not that level

plenty of nations that have both higher incomes and MUCH higher taxes than the USA

I always thought the notion that they'd all pack up and leave was silly. If that were the case, they'd all buy an island together for only rich people and the top .1% would live there with very little government and taxes. Nothing would stop them from also having houses around the world and traveling their frequently.

[dice]

Okay, so every wealthy person renounces their citizenship and moves somewhere else. That's a much bigger loop hole actually.

which would not happen, and i think you know that. rich people across the globe live in nations with high tax rates. and yet there are many nations with very low tax rates they could move to. they don't. moreover, there simply isn't much evidence that, up to a certain point, higher tax rates have much impact on economic activity on a national level. not in the US (we've had plenty of instances of tax rates being significantly adjusted) and not worldwide. and 50% is not that level

plenty of nations that have both higher incomes and MUCH higher taxes than the USA

I always thought the notion that they'd all pack up and leave was silly. If that were the case, they'd all buy an island together for only rich people and the top .1% would live there with very little government and taxes. Nothing would stop them from also having houses around the world and traveling their frequently.

i mean, california has a 13% top income tax bracket. new york's is 9%. texas and florida? ZERO. and yet, wealthy individuals do not flood to texas and florida. and such a move would hardly be the inconvenience/culture shock that moving to another NATION would be

[2018C3]

which would not happen, and i think you know that. rich people across the globe live in nations with high tax rates. and yet there are many nations with very low tax rates they could move to. they don't. moreover, there simply isn't much evidence that, up to a certain point, higher tax rates have much impact on economic activity on a national level. not in the US (we've had plenty of instances of tax rates being significantly adjusted) and not worldwide. and 50% is not that level

plenty of nations that have both higher incomes and MUCH higher taxes than the USA

I always thought the notion that they'd all pack up and leave was silly. If that were the case, they'd all buy an island together for only rich people and the top .1% would live there with very little government and taxes. Nothing would stop them from also having houses around the world and traveling their frequently.

i mean, california has a 13% top income tax bracket. new york's is 9%. texas and florida? ZERO. and yet, wealthy individuals do not flood to texas and florida. and such a move would hardly be the inconvenience/culture shock that moving to another NATION would be

Many of us have been affected by outsourcing to other nations already. I have been multiple times in my career. Its a fact that for the last several decades companies and jobs have been leaving. I believe that over taxing theese companies that stay will not benefit the US economy in the long term.

I don't know what the answer is, as I do not have one. Something needs to be done to keep jobs here. I do believe extracting more taxes from corporations is not the answer. The US needs to work towards keeping jobs here, and also pay employees a reasonable wage. It needs to be a wage that exceeds free benefits recieved.

The current system is broke. and being taken advantage of by too many who are not productive to society.

Have you ever worked a food drive? You will see people collecting that both dress nicer than you, and also show up in nicer vehicles. It can be very disheartening to work one of theese events.

I'm not a economist, but support increasing minimum wage, and also think couseling services should be increased working towards the goal of finding people jobs and exstablishing term limits on benefits given out to the population that is capable. If you recieve help, drug testing should be mandatory. So the people who really reed help do to mental and physical disabilities can still get adequate funds.

I have other ideas also, but some of them are extreame and won't be received well. I think the largest issue facing society is population growth. It's something that will need to be addressed eventually. I think free male and female fixings should be offered once a parent has a 2nd child. Please note: I said free not mandatory, but there should be some sort of financial incentive provided to those that accept. Also adoption should be a easier process, there are already lots of un-wanted children out there who need loving parents. National campains should be run to bring more awareness to this issue, and increase adoption rates.

[dice]

I always thought the notion that they'd all pack up and leave was silly. If that were the case, they'd all buy an island together for only rich people and the top .1% would live there with very little government and taxes. Nothing would stop them from also having houses around the world and traveling their frequently.

i mean, california has a 13% top income tax bracket. new york's is 9%. texas and florida? ZERO. and yet, wealthy individuals do not flood to texas and florida. and such a move would hardly be the inconvenience/culture shock that moving to another NATION would be

Many of us have been affected by outsourcing to other nations already. I have been multiple times in my career. Its a fact that for the last several decades companies and jobs have been leaving. I believe that over taxing theese companies that stay will not benefit the US economy in the long term.

there is no question that globalization has caused many jobs, particularly in manufacturing, to be sent to mexico or overseas for decades now. i personally, however, am advocating for higher taxes on well-off individuals and lower taxes on companies

The US needs to work towards keeping jobs here, and also pay employees a reasonable wage. It needs to be a wage that exceeds free benefits recieved.

a universal basic income would eliminate the need for a minimum wage, helping businesses (particularly small) and perhaps allow more jobs to be retained in the US

Have you ever worked a food drive? You will see people collecting that both dress nicer than you, and also show up in nicer vehicles. It can be very disheartening to work one of theese events.

those are either awful people or they live in their cars

I'm not a economist, but support increasing minimum wage, and also think couseling services should be increased working towards the goal of finding people jobs and exstablishing term limits on benefits given out to the population that is capable. If you recieve help. drug testing should be mandatory. So the people who really reed help do to mental and physical disabilities can still get adequate funds.

agree for the most part, depending on what drugs you're testing for. i think it's a great idea to have more government services to help match people up with appropriate work, though i'm not sure how effective that would be

I think the largest issue facing society is population growth. It's something that will need to be addressed eventually. I think free male and female fixings should be offered once a parent has a 2nd child. Please note: I said free not mandatory, but there should be some sort of financial incentive provided to those that accept.

that's interesting. i agree that such services should be provided by the government free of charge. population growth is certainly an issue worldwide...not sure in the USA specifically (though obviously everybody contributes to the world's problem). there are people who say we should actually be reproducing more in this country

[Taikuri]

Dumb question, but what's the point of getting tested? Right now, there's no vaccine. Is it simply to know if you have it or not? Aren't you better off just pre-emptively self-quarantining if you're feeling ill? It seems like going to get tested has two main issues:

1.) If you don't have it, you've risked exposing yourself to it by going to a testing center where other people may have it.

2.) If you do have it, you're risking infecting people who don't have it at testing centers.

It's good to know of course so you don't pass it around. They have drive thru testing sites now, so it's pretty sterile process. Also, if you know it is not the virus, you can treat with flu remedies, which won't work on corona but will work on flu.

They need to get some legit COVID-19 testing kits in super markets all over the world as soon as possible. Ones that give the result in days instead of weeks. It would help in many ways but these test kits needs to be accurate and not something that give bad results. I guess that's why we don't have them available yet. I know that you can order some questionable testing kits from the internet but we need some goverment & WHO accepted kits in wide distribution soon.

[Taikuri]

Here in the UK it's alarming how many people still won't take the Coronavirus seriously. I know people who have had symptoms but would rather shake it off as a common cold or flu rather than be cautious and isolate.

Without testing those people will not alter their lives until the consequences or the virus are staring them right in the face.

So testing is important because a lot of people will not scale back their activity until they know for sure they have the virus.

It's also important because without testing it's untraceable. It's impossible to keep track of hotspot areas of the country. If there's no testing of ordinary members of the public you could have one city or town that is blowing up and you'd have no idea.

Yeah UK needs to put that +10 people gatherings ban on and cops need to start supervising that people follow that. Finland just started doing it and I like the sound of it very much.

Israel took it one step further and they are allowed to monitor people's movement via their cellphone activity (GPS tracking) and then try to stop infections that way. Bye bye privacy but I kinda like that in the status quo. I wish other countries did that too. Would you guys be fine at this point if your own goverment would have access to your phones/locations until this pandemic is over?

[Taikuri]

The US probably has countless cases already. They are only testing people who are showing severe symptoms. I wouldn't doubt if the number is 500,000. At some point in the next month or so, the US will be losing thousands of people per day. Don't forget, we have 5 or 6 times as many people as Spain and Italy.

I think that the official tracking of infections values are indeed very inaccurate because many countries stopped tracking all the infections. This includes USA and Finland. Finland is at 10 000 infections for sure and not 300~ or what ever which is the official number.

Better ways to track each country's COVID-19 spread at the moment is either tracking critical/serious condition patients or fatality numbers. Tracking fatalities can never be accurate either due to each country's average age and the level of medical care differences compared to the rest of the countries but it's way better than checking the reported infections of each country now.

To get the infections number close you would multiply the death count by 100-400. If every 1-4 person die out of 100 now around the world as it seems this would make the real infection number quite close to what it really is per country.

[Taikuri]

Looks like my younger brother is about to lose his job and he's concerned about losing his health insurance right now. Anyone have leads on online/remote jobs that might be worth applying for? Doesn't need to come with insurance as long as it pays enough for him to buy his own.

Amazon is hiring a lot of people in The States right? Finnish news even said that they are hiring thousands of people and are doing amazing during this chaotic time.

[GimmeDat]

As someone who works in a school, I'm getting a bit frustrated. No matter what precautions we try to take, and how much we enforce hygiene with the students, it's a hotbed for germs. When we have (where I am) bans of 500 or more/100 or more if inside, it feels pretty stupid that I'm going to work every day and being in contact with so many people. Some kids are coughing/sneezing/otherwise sick, also doesn't help that I had a kid spit on my face last week, lol.

It's not an easy situation logistically to consider shutting schools down, but for my sake, and for the sake of every other school employee, I feel like it's definitely not in our best interest.

[bulls_troy]

As someone who works in a school, I'm getting a bit frustrated. No matter what precautions we try to take, and how much we enforce hygiene with the students, it's a hotbed for germs. When we have (where I am) bans of 500 or more/100 or more if inside, it feels pretty stupid that I'm going to work every day and being in contact with so many people. Some kids are coughing/sneezing/otherwise sick, also doesn't help that I had a kid spit on my face last week, lol.

It's not an easy situation logistically to consider shutting schools down, but for my sake, and for the sake of every other school employee, I feel like it's definitely not in our best interest.

I'm guessing you're in Australia? Coz that's the crowd ban we had announced today

Stupid AFL also allowing the season to begin

[League Circles]

which would not happen, and i think you know that. rich people across the globe live in nations with high tax rates. and yet there are many nations with very low tax rates they could move to. they don't. moreover, there simply isn't much evidence that, up to a certain point, higher tax rates have much impact on economic activity on a national level. not in the US (we've had plenty of instances of tax rates being significantly adjusted) and not worldwide. and 50% is not that level

plenty of nations that have both higher incomes and MUCH higher taxes than the USA

I always thought the notion that they'd all pack up and leave was silly. If that were the case, they'd all buy an island together for only rich people and the top .1% would live there with very little government and taxes. Nothing would stop them from also having houses around the world and traveling their frequently.

i mean, california has a 13% top income tax bracket. new york's is 9%. texas and florida? ZERO. and yet, wealthy individuals do not flood to texas and florida. and such a move would hardly be the inconvenience/culture shock that moving to another NATION would be

Are you sure that wealthy individuals don't flood to texas and Florida for their state of legal residence? I sure know some who have. Oh they still spend plenty of time in places like Illinois, but their legal residence is in a tax haven.

Earlier you mentioned that there are lots of countries with higher incomes and higher taxes than the US. Am I correct in stating that they are almost exclusively very, very small countries population wise? If so, doesn't that kind of help prove Doug's point?

[League Circles]

You can tax "income" as high as you want, but until people have to pay taxes on treasury bond yields you're not going to touch the wealth of the super rich, and if you do tax them, you're really gambling on the stability of something like a third of our federal budget because that's essentially how it's funded.

Same goes for capital gains taxes to a lesser extent.

[dougthonus]

which would not happen, and i think you know that. rich people across the globe live in nations with high tax rates. and yet there are many nations with very low tax rates they could move to. they don't. moreover, there simply isn't much evidence that, up to a certain point, higher tax rates have much impact on economic activity on a national level. not in the US (we've had plenty of instances of tax rates being significantly adjusted) and not worldwide. and 50% is not that level

plenty of nations that have both higher incomes and MUCH higher taxes than the USA

Rich people in this nation have manipulated the laws to get out of taxes forever and do not actually pay high tax rates, and if you offer to move their real tax rate from 18-20% to 50%, I actually absolutely believe that it would happen with the wealthiest people.

[dougthonus]

i mean, california has a 13% top income tax bracket. new york's is 9%. texas and florida? ZERO. and yet, wealthy individuals do not flood to texas and florida. and such a move would hardly be the inconvenience/culture shock that moving to another NATION would be

Wealthy individuals often are accumulating their wealth without paying taxes through equity, very few super wealthy individuals are building wealth through earning wages. Also, I think a huge percentage of them do exactly what you are suggesting.

[Habs72]

The US probably has countless cases already. They are only testing people who are showing severe symptoms. I wouldn't doubt if the number is 500,000. At some point in the next month or so, the US will be losing thousands of people per day. Don't forget, we have 5 or 6 times as many people as Spain and Italy.

I think that the official tracking of infections values are indeed very inaccurate because many countries stopped tracking all the infections. This includes USA and Finland. Finland is at 10 000 infections for sure and not 300~ or what ever which is the official number.

Better ways to track each country's COVID-19 spread at the moment is either tracking critical/serious condition patients or fatality numbers. Tracking fatalities can never be accurate either due to each country's average age and the level of medical care differences compared to the rest of the countries but it's way better than checking the reported infections of each country now.

To get the infections number close you would multiply the death count by 100-400. If every 1-4 person die out of 100 now around the world as it seems this would make the real infection number quite close to what it really is per country.

Ok, hold your horses on balded part. Finland resumed testing again, although not everyone is getting tested. Same goes with most countries. Finland might have 10 000 infections, BUT that amount isnt comparable AT all on other countries. They might have 20-30 times the counted numbers, more or less. Or then again not. Thing is we dont know, no one does. Cultural differences can make a lot of difference with the spreading, how people react to restrictions.