(06-28-2011 02:58 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(06-28-2011 02:26 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Even YOUR witness says "mostly".

"It was just applause, really," Bendery said

My apologies for the misquote. It doesn't change anything else in my statement.... all facts which you ignored

(06-29-2011 10:22 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(06-29-2011 07:34 AM)Paul M Wrote:  At lest your admitting your assuming. First step to recovery. Alas, I really don't think you'll make it.

And there is also that whole eye-witness thing...ya know...

"It was just applause, really,"

Still, you're ignoring the OTHER eye-witness statement typed into the transcript by someone paid to listen for such things. Do you think the HuffPo writer was actually listening at that moment to judge the reaction like the stenographer was? I doubt it. I think it much more likely that a writer for the HuffPo has an agenda and a bias than the stenographer hired by the DNC having one or making such a glaring mistake. I started that statement with I think, meaning you're free to think differently, but you can't simply ignore one fact and accept the other because it suits your agenda and then claim the other side has no facts. Your person heard "applause... really".... all evidence says the stenographer heard laughter. You are CHOOSING who to believe and disregard. You are not choosing facts over fiction.

(06-29-2011 10:24 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  I also watched a tape last night on KO's show where Obama said the same line at a different event and nobody laughed.

Proof of nothing having to do with the other event... and if it had shown laughter, would you have expected him to run it?

Sorry, Tom. I'm more than happy to accept that what the stenographer heard was a nearby exception, or if you can find evidence where he/she admits having typed it in error, I'll go with you... and to be honest, it is what I'd expect to have happened... but that's not the evidence we have... and people pointing it out aren't "making it up". It happened.

Fair enough. The main thing I still have yet to see addressed is where in all this the supposed MSM edited anything. The only thing that changed was the official WH transcript. There was no video allowed in the event. Only print pool reporters.

(06-29-2011 03:02 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  Fair enough. The main thing I still have yet to see addressed is where in all this the supposed MSM edited anything. The only thing that changed was the official WH transcript. There was no video allowed in the event. Only print pool reporters.

True, Claiming that the MSM is part of this particular "conspiracy" is very likely an overstatement... unless you include pool reporters in that bucket which I think some Fox followers do since wasn't fox excluded from the pool? My memory is fuzzy there (because I don't really care)

We don't know who edited it, only that it was edited. Could have been the WH, could have been the stenographer. Doesn't REALLY matter in the grand scheme whether somebody laughed or not... only REALLY matters that while the job market COULD be worse, we've spent almost 2 trillion dollars we didn't have and it isn't "better". I personally don't care if Bush made it worse than we thought or Obama has been less effective than we hoped... either way, we're still way behind.

No doubt.

Yeah, I can't find any mainstream press on this event at all. No list of reporters or anything. And according to the itinerary I saw from the DNC there might have actually even been two fundraising events with the POTUS that night at the hotel.

The only name I ever say on record as being there...other than Obama...was the chick I quoted above.

Anyway, at least this thread lead me to decide to officially ignore SOAF now! My relative sanity couldn't take it any more...LOL

(06-29-2011 05:36 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(06-29-2011 03:02 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  Fair enough. The main thing I still have yet to see addressed is where in all this the supposed MSM edited anything. The only thing that changed was the official WH transcript. There was no video allowed in the event. Only print pool reporters.

True, Claiming that the MSM is part of this particular "conspiracy" is very likely an overstatement... unless you include pool reporters in that bucket which I think some Fox followers do since wasn't fox excluded from the pool? My memory is fuzzy there (because I don't really care)
We don't know who edited it, only that it was edited. Could have been the WH, could have been the stenographer. Doesn't REALLY matter in the grand scheme whether somebody laughed or not... only REALLY matters that while the job market COULD be worse, we've spent almost 2 trillion dollars we didn't have and it isn't "better". I personally don't care if Bush made it worse than we thought or Obama has been less effective than we hoped... either way, we're still way behind.

Bottom line is that, to date, there's very little difference between what Bush did for the economy (unprecedented levels of deficit spending, TARP, one-time handouts processed through tax system) and what Obama has done (even bigger deficits, bailouts, "stimulus"). And the needle pretty hasn't moved for either one of them.

Maybe we'll get the idea that stimulating demand isn't the way out of the box we're in. We're not getting jobs back until we make the US a better place to do business than the places that are taking jobs away from us--and not so much China and the third world as Germany and Poland and places with something close to our labor expectations and our social structure.

Owl, are you in favor of taking away the tax breaks from corps that ship jobs overseas...or is this just a bogus D talking point?

(06-30-2011 09:46 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  No doubt.

Yeah, I can't find any mainstream press on this event at all. No list of reporters or anything. And according to the itinerary I saw from the DNC there might have actually even been two fundraising events with the POTUS that night at the hotel.

The only name I ever say on record as being there...other than Obama...was the chick I quoted above.

Anyway, at least this thread lead me to decide to officially ignore SOAF now! My relative sanity couldn't take it any more...LOL

Just admit you are a failure, and a coward.

(06-30-2011 11:58 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  Owl, are you in favor of taking away the tax breaks from corps that ship jobs overseas...or is this just a bogus D talking point?

Interestingly, one of my biggest complaints about Obama's war on integrated oil companies is that he wants to remove the existing "incentive" for using US companies and labor. How exactly can you take a tax break (deduction) away from a company for shipping jobs overseas and not think that it will simply cause them to ship MORE jobs overseas (like the corporate secretary)? I mean, you can't tax what isn't here... and they moved overseas because the "cost" of being overseas was lower. How does increasing their costs make staying in the US MORE competitive?

I know you asked Owl, and as usual, he will be much more eloquent than I, but this is an issue I care about

(06-30-2011 02:02 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(06-30-2011 11:58 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  Owl, are you in favor of taking away the tax breaks from corps that ship jobs overseas...or is this just a bogus D talking point?

Interestingly, one of my biggest complaints about Obama's war on integrated oil companies is that he wants to remove the existing "incentive" for using US companies and labor. How exactly can you take a tax break (deduction) away from a company for shipping jobs overseas and not think that it will simply cause them to ship MORE jobs overseas (like the corporate secretary)? I mean, you can't tax what isn't here... and they moved overseas because the "cost" of being overseas was lower. How does increasing their costs make staying in the US MORE competitive?
I know you asked Owl, and as usual, he will be much more eloquent than I, but this is an issue I care about

Well, Owl is certainly not offended that you spoke up, Hambone, and Owl agrees with his fellow owl. Only problem now is that I have to live up to the "more eloquent" standard you have set.

There is a legitimate issue here, but it's not the one that usually gets demagogued.

This is a little bit technical, but here's where I see a huge problem. The biggest tax break available to companies who ship jobs overseas is that the top marginal tax rate in those countries is lower, and often substantially lower. There are those who insist this is not a problem because US companies pay a lower effective tax rate than their foreign counterparts in many of those countries. But that is a result of business decisions forced by the tax code. Basically, there are a lot of loopholes in the US tax code, so you keep enough operations here to exhaust all the loopholes, and once you are at the point that you are facing the full brunt of he US tax code, you move the rest of your operation overseas into unconsolidated subsidiaries. Once I've run out of loopholes here, my next dollar of profit will be taxed at about 40% here (including state taxes), or 19% if I move the operation that makes that profit to Poland, or 12.5% if I move that operation to Ireland, to cite a couple of examples. Guess what? At that point, I'm not staying here. Can't afford to. The unconsolidated subsidiary part is key, because if I report the income on a consolidated return, I have to pay US tax on it, regardless of where in the world I earned it (Somalia is the only other country that does it that way, last time I checked). Or if I dividend the money back to the US parent, I pay the difference between US taxes and the foreign taxes, so if I repatriate a dollar earned in Ireland, I pay 12.5 cents to the Irish government and 27.5 cents to the US. So I do what GE obviously does, I push as many profits as I can overseas into unconsolidated subsidiaries, and if I'm as good at it as GE, at the end of the day I pay no US taxes. This is why US companies are accumulating trillions in cash; it's overseas profits that they are stashing overseas rather than paying US taxes to bring the money home.

Suppose congres tries to close this gap by requiring unconsolidated subsidiaries to pay the US tax differential. Charlie Rangel proposed doing this, but backed off after, I'm sure, it was pointed out to him that it would make Wall Street a ghost town. How? Let's suppose I had operations in the US, Poland, and Ireland. Before the change, I'm paying 40% on my US profits, 19% on my Polish profits (just like my Polish competitors), and 12.5% on my Irish profits (just like my Irish competitors). After the change, I'm paying 40% on my US profits, 40% on my Irish profits, and 40% on my Polish profits. That gives my Irish and Polish competitors a huge cost advantage, probably enough to make me non-competitive. So, what can I do? Move my parent corporation to Dublin or Warsaw. That lets me again pay 40% on my US source profits (through my US corporation that is now a sub instead of a parent), 12.5% on my Irish profits, and 19% on my Polish profits, and I am competitive again.

I've used Ireland and Poland as examples because the rate differential is greatest for them. But the same problem exists with respect to every other developed country in the world, just to a lesser extent for some. As a purely tax-based decision, I would probably prefer Poland over Ireland because, although their corporate rate is higher, their individual rate (waht I'd be paying on my salary) is substantially lower (19% versus 49.5%, IIRC).

What we can do is what several groups who have looked at deficit reduction have recommended. Take the Reagan/Bill Bradley thing a step further and lower and flatten rates while applying them to a much broader definition of taxable income This generates more revenue AND it makes us more competitive in the world. Following the lead of every other country in the world (except Somalia, good company, huh?), it would also be helpful to tax US comanies on US-source income only.