Longwood50

On 1/25/2023 at 3:23 AM, heybruce said:

Regardless, do these job creators build the roads, provide the utilities, educate their work force from grade school up, etc? 

Ah the Elizabeth Warrent disciple.  And those roads, schools, and bridges that the public paid for, just where did they get the money to pay for those?  Did they inherit it, do they have a money tree in their back yard, or did they get a job and get paid.  Ergo, confiscate the profits of the company and rob it of capital to expand or start a new venture and guess what there are fewer people with jobs to pay for those roads, schools, and bridges. 

You are a classic example of class envy.  Its funny, people applaud those who can dunk a basketball, throw a baseball, or stand on stage and sing.  However let a person be successful in busines and they are evil personified when in fact without them society would crumble. 

As to the wealth that along with many others comments of yours is ridiculous.  The very fact that the wealthy despite paying the majority of taxes still accumulate wealth is testimony to them doing the right thing.  Also did it ever strike you that the wealth they create comes AFTER THEY HAVE ALREADY PAID THE MAJORITY OF THE TAX BILL.  
In communism the government owns everything and they dole out to those whatever they deem fit.  You would have it that it is an even more evil system where the private entrepreneur risks his/her money and if a failure takes the loss but if a success the government confiscates the majority of it and gives the owner again only what it thinks he should have. 

You of course make this unsubstantiated comment about the wealthy being good at hiding their money.  B*** S**t.  The only money you can hide is what is in your pocket.  Invest it in real estate, stock, precious metals, commodities or foreign bank accounts and there is a paper trail. 

Even if what you say was true which is is not, it does not dispute the fact that the top 1% after all their evil deeds still pay more than the bottom 90% pay in Federal Income Tax. 

It seems to gall you that someone becomes wealthy.  I say, SO WHAT.  The world is infinitely better off because of the contributions of Steve Jobs, Bill, Gates, Larry Ellison, Jeff Bezos, Sam Walton, Elon Musk and many others.  It is a very simple concept that you seem to lack the intellectual capability to understand or your envy blinds you.  You want more billionaires not fewer.  Society is better off with successful people than unsuccesful ones.  Jobs are created by successful people who do so to become wealthy and without jobs society is hurt.  The more you "punish" people for doing productive activities to create jobs the more you hurt the very people you say you are trying to help. 

Finally, you seem to be of this mindset that this wealth goes on to eternity.  One only has to look at the Bill Gates giving the majority of his money to the Gates Foundation and Warren Buffet already has said the majority of his fortune will go to a foundation.  They both recognize that retaining that money to do good things is preferable to having the government confiscate it through inheritance taxes.  So after paying the majority of the taxes via earnings during their lives, they accumulate wealth that again the government will confiscate another 40% of it at death and somehow you think that is fair. 

The siren song of from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs continues attract fools despite each and every example of it being shown to be a disaster.  Even China recognizes the folly of "communism" and in 2020 created more billinaires than the rest of the world combined.  They have learned the folly of confiscating the wealth of the successful.  One only has to look at the China has a long term 9% GDP growth rate versus the USA at 3.1%.  

Now this is a very simple concept but then again I have to be mindful of who I am talking to.  That GDP growth rate creating wealth and hence wealthy people, and it means that China is creating jobs and jobs help the average person.  So you would have it that to soothe your class envy you would sooner punish the wealthy than benefit the average guy.  Pretty Sad. 

https://www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2022/03/china-is-producing-new-billionaires-faster-than-any-other-country/

On 1/25/2023 at 5:11 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

Alas, you are speaking in 10 year ago mode. MS and Amazon ( your heroes ) just sacked thousands, factories are going AI/ robotics, the future for anyone unqualified is bleak.

You still miss my point.  Business will always seek efficiency since they keep what is left over.  And would you prefer that the buggy whip business was still around or that you staffed elevators to keep the person who staffed the elevator in decades past was still employed. 

Capital kept by an entrepreneur will go to other money making ventures.  Those replace the jobs lost to automation.  Failure to encourage the creation of and expansion of those new ventures means that the remaining businesses will in fact seek to reduce the numbers of employees and the more you tax them the greater the incentive to move their operations overseas. 

You want more business, you want existing business to expand, you want the business to survive through difficult times.  The more you confiscate from them the less ability they have to do any of that. 
Taking money from Peter to pay to Paul does not increase the wealth or prosperity of the country.  If anything it is a disincentive to Peter to earn the money in the first place.  Encourage Peter by letting him keep more of his money to start or grow his business and create jobs for Paul and everyone benefits.  

I have a Toyota Cross and originally purchased a genuine Toyota car cover.  It lasted about 1 year before the sun weakened the fabric to the point that it started to shred.  I then did some research and purchased a heavier duty 3 layer fabric called Sensiron that was suppose to have a three year life.  Well it is less that 1 year and it to has become brittle started to crack and separate.  The car is under a car port roof with only the rear of the car getting sun throughout the morning.  That is exactly where the fabric is damaged and shredding. 

Is there another fabric that someone is aware of that will hold up better to the Thailand sun? 

5 hours ago, candide said:

Can't you read? Or are you knowingly changing the meaning of others' posts? I wrote "it starts going back to a more reasonable level", not "has returned to a more normal level".

As I said, one would have to be be blind to say that 28.6% is "reasonable" That is 50% higher than historical norms.  

Also try this, using a calculator.   Since I am guessing you don't remember how to calculate it, take the $6.8 trillion put that on top, that is colled the Numerator.  Put the 23.32 GDP on the bottom that is called the denominator.  If you then use that magic calculator to divide it will tell yo that amounts to 29.15%.  

Now some put government spending at $6.6 vs. $6.8 trillion.  One way or another if you find that REASONABLE as a percent of GDP or per person or per family, you must be smoking some really potent stuff. 

The federal government spent $6.8 trillion in FY2021 — or $20,634 per person. 

15 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

The government here could build fewer bridges to nowhere and trainlines to cities that don't need them.  There is a lot of pork and duplication of activity at all levels of government. A lot of paper gets shuffled, printed, and disposed of that could easily be done online by far fewer staff.   And, God forbid, perhaps a slight rise in taxes. 

The money can always be spent better but remember there are only 4 ways that money can be spent:

1. You spend your own money on yourself. - You care very much about what something costs and you care that you get the best value for what you purchase. 

2. You spend your own money on someone else. - You care very much about what something costs, but less concerned over the value since it is the other person who receives that benefit. 

3. You spend someone elses money on yourself.  A company paid trip, means you care nothing about what something costs, but you are very concerned to get the absolute best for yourself. 

4.  You spend someone elses money on someone else. - You do not care how much somehting costs and you don't care about the value of the purchase since it goes to someone else.  THAT IS GOVERNMENT.  

Giving the government more money is the surest way to guarantee that it is mispent.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  Throwing more money at government will only continue the waste, fraud, and mismangement. 

26 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Not really controversial, IMO just common sense.

Singapore tried that a long time ago, but I don't know if it was successful. Many career women just don't want to get married and have children, and I don't blame them.

Yes it is far easier to encourage people not to have children than to have them.  However, perhaps things like government sponsored day care, special consideration for better jobs, special consideration for better schools and even free college for those with multiple children could persuade some to do it.  

One thing is for sure, you want to encourage the best and brightest of your citizens to have children.  The way it is working out now, those with the least education and skills are having the most children.  That is a sure way of guaranteeing a less desirable future for everyone.  

I would envision a program that is exactly the opposite of China's one child policy.  Instead of their penalties for having more than one child, having benefits for having two or more children.  

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I fundamentally disagree. Have to go back a few years to when societies were more equal, but people were happier. Some people being really rich and loads of poor people does not make a happy society.

That is true, however you miss my point.  The answer is not to make the rich poorer but to make the poor richer.   You do not accomplish that by taking the capital that the wealthy use to expand their businesses.  

That is akin to robbing the farmer of his seed corn to make bread to feed the people.  Sounds humanitarian but next year there is less corn. 

Jobs create wealth and wealth is created by people risking their own money to start and expand businesses.  Take the money away from them does two things.  It diminishes their incentive to be in business and it robs them of the money to expand.  

Like it or not, the best way to increase wealth is to create jobs and in order to create those jobs you have to encourage not discourage those who create those jobs.  So what that Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos are wealthy.  They employ hundreds of thousands of people all earning over $100,000 per year.  

You want to encourage rather than discourage manufacturing jobs that can employ those with limited skills.  Instead we tax them encouraging them to move their plants overseas.  

Yes and just who could believe this McGonigal was one of the point persons who spearheaded the Russian Collusion hoax and the wiretapping of Trump Campaign staffer Carter Page which in turn allowed for the surviellance and wire tapping of anyone connected to the Trump Campaign.  

Gosh who would have thought. 


https://www.foxnews.com/politics/retired-top-fbi-counterintelligence-agent-led-trump-russia-probe-arrested-own-ties-russian-oligarch

7 hours ago, heybruce said:

Simple solution:  Increase immigration.  Japan would have no problem finding young, hard working people willing to work on long-term or permanent visas.  Language would be a problem, but not an insurmountable one.

So your solution is to cede your country to others.  A country is defined by three things, borders, language, and culture.  What you are suggesting is for the Japanese who have built their nation into one of the most powerful economies in the world to pass that inheritance on to those who did nothing to build it but enjoy the benefits. 

The solution lies with encouraging rather than discouraging people to have children.  Society has placed huge financial burdens on those who chose to have children.  Basic law of economics, you penalize something you get less of it, you subsidize it and you get more of it. 

The Chinese with a population explosion problem imposed a 1 child law.  They severely punished those who had more than 1 child robbing them and the children of benefits.  The Japanese should do the opposite.  Preferential benefits going to those in Japan that choose to have families.  Now this would be really controversial but those who are the best, brightest, and most successful should receive the largest incentive to have children.  Do you want to poplulate your country with the progeny of two parents who are both cardiothorasic surgeons, or two parents who are high school drop outs living on welfare. 

On 1/21/2023 at 2:26 PM, heybruce said:

The top 1% own sixteen times as much wealth as the bottom 50%

Yes and so what.  That means they are doing the correct thing.  They are being productive.  As said, taxing them is a punishment for being productive members of society that give back more than they receive.  They pay 38 times the rate of the bottom 20%.  

This notion of taxing those who are successful , productive, and job creators to redistribute it to those who are unsuccessful non productive and have not job is ludicrous.  You want as a nation more Bill Gates, Elon Musks, Jeff Bezos, Sam Waltons, and Larry Ellison's not few.  

Does it not dawn on you that JOBS come from somewhere.  That is what benefits the typical person.  Those jobs come from entrepreneurs who are willing to take the risk of their own money.  Would you buy a lottery ticket if you knew the majority of your winnings would be confiscated.  The more you tax those who are successful the fewer successful people you will have.  That robs them of the money TO EXPAND.  Now if they get wealthy in the process so what.  That is like telling the car salesman that he is earning too much because he sells too many cars and taxing him to reduce his earnings.  


This mindset of taxing the wealthy is nothing more than a different term for Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto.  From each according to their ability and to each according to their needs.  

Now that may sound like Nirvana but it does not work.  If I was the government and I took from you the majority of what you earned from your salary just how incented are you to work or work more.  Do you really thing that doesn't apply to business people at all.  

The fact is that the best way to spread the wealth is to make more people engaged in making money.  That is jobs.  Jobs come from entrepreneurs and you want more of them. You take steps to encourage those who provide jobs not rob them for being successful in accomplishing that. 

On 1/21/2023 at 3:19 PM, GroveHillWanderer said:

t is a lot - but the findings of that article are simply not applicable to Thailand. As the article states, fully 70% of those switching did so because of the horribly slow speed of charging at home using a standard US 120 volt domestic electrical outlet.  

Some of the drawbacks mentioned in the article are not applicable to Thailand.  However, I suspect that all of the drawbacks have not been fully recognized.  Here is one that no one considered when purchasing their Tesla.

19 hours ago, heybruce said:

BTW:  I don't think too many people are overly concerned about the top 1% paying a 21% tax rate.  During the 1950's and early 1960's they were paying a top tax rate of 90% or more. 

Again, the top tax rate is irrelevant.  It is how much that is paid not the rate.  Note over time the USA despite the wailing and knashing of teeth about paying "their fair share" has become more confiscatory to those at upper income levels not less.  That is why when they complain about tax cuts only benefiting the wealthy they are being deceptive.  Yes any tax cut benefits the wealthy more.  They are the ones paying the most and the lowest tax bracket tax filers in most cases pay zero or even get a refund on taxes not paid in the form of what is really a reverse income tax called an 'earned income credit" 

This chart by very liberal CNN very clearly shows the progression where the upper income groups now bear an increasingly large share of the federal income tax revenue. 





https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/12/news/economy/rich-taxes/

21 minutes ago, heybruce said:

Both signs that your arguments are weak.

Yours are non existent. 

As pointed out.  The top 1% now already pay more than the botton 90% combined.  The top 1% pay an average tax rate of 32% the bottom 20% tax bracket an average of 32%.  How much do you favor?  What is progressive?  I think 32 times is really progressive. 

Now I am going to try and make this simple for you.  Money comes in the door that is revenue.  It does not matter how that money comes in.  Money goes out for expenses.  It does not matter what that expense is.  If I pay $10,000 for gas from my supplier  that cost has to be factored in when I calculate the price I am going to sell that gas at.  If my gas price from my supplier doubles to $20,000 I have to adjust my price.  Now if my gas price stays the same at $10,000 but the government imposes a tax on me of $10,000 THE EFFECT IS THE SAME.  

Businesses keep whatever is left over after all the expenses and taxes are an expense is left over.  

You talk about income inequality like a true liberal. The fact is that occupations that are "successful" earn more than those that are unsuccessful.  You seem to think it is a moral outrage that some business person invests his/her own money, sells a product that is valued by consumers, and earns money.  However you seem to indicate that somehow the person who drops out of school, has zero skills, and earns a pittance is the fault of the wealthy person.  NO IT IS NOT. 

The marketplace not bureacrats dictate what the public perceives has value and rewards it.  Bill Gate became wealthy providing the world with an unsurpassed way of increasing productivity.  Jeff Bezos at Amazon became wealthy by increasing the scope and providing a copetitive landscape for people to buy products internationally not just locally.  The marketplace voted and they were rewarded FOR BEING SUCCESSFUL.  What you suggest is that no we should tax those that are successful and subsidize those who are not.  I say you have it reversed.  You should encourage those who are not successful to improve themselves not discourage those who are. 

Money does not grow on tree.  Take money in the form of taxes from wealthy entrepreneurs and they have 1. less reason to risk their money since they know a larger portion of what they earn will be taken away. 2. They will then have less money for that company expansion or to hire more workers. 3. They redirect their investments from job creating activities to tax avoidance. 4. For those that can, they move their operations to lower tax jurisdictions.  One only has to look at the busiensses fleeing California for Texas as evidence of this.  

Somehow the media has for year promulgated this notion of that the wealthy "successful" should pay more.  The best answer I ever got was from a congressman who when I queried him, said no taxing the wealthy was not fair but that is where the money is.  It has nothing to do with fairness. 

Do you favor a card with your tax bracket tht you have to show where if you go to a gas station or grocery store you pay more for identical items "because you can afford it" 

Like it or not, if no one is successful everyone by default become failures.  Simple example is the lottery.  Make the jackpot $1 million and you sell a few tickets.  Make the jackpot $1 billion and you sell lots.  The same is true for entrepreneurs.  Make the reward of taking the risk small and you get few takers.  Make it huge and you get more willing to gamble.  It is the successful people who create jobs.  Amazon employes 1.5 million the average wage is $101,000.  Google employes 150,000 average wage is $123,000.  Microsoft employs 221,000 people and an average wage of $123,000.  

You seem to be of this mindset that rewarding the entrepreneurs who become wealthy is just a pot of gold that really belongs to the public and is there for the plundering.  I suggest that if I asked you to risk your money on a venture and if you failed too bad you take the loss but if you were successful that I get to keep the majority of it, you would say that is a no win situation and decline to take the risk.  That is exactly what you are proposing.   I don't understand the class envy.  I could care less what Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or Bill Gates make providing that they got that wealth from providing goods and services that the public wants and create jobs from their activities. 

This is from Thomas Sowell - Senior Fellow Economics Stanford University. 

13 minutes ago, nauseus said:

Government spending in the United States was last recorded at 37.0 percent of GDP in 2022, according to initial estimates.

Those are difference calculations.  Spending as a percent of GDP takes total spending and total GDP.   The 37% to as high as 46% is calculated to total spending to GDP if you subtract governent spending as a percentage of GDP.  

Government spending adds to the GDP total.  If the government builds an aircraft carrier its value is added to GDP making the GDP total higher.  If you subtract the government spending the GDP total goes down so if you then take total spending to the now reduced GDP it becomes a higher percentage.   

16 hours ago, heybruce said:

"First, companies don't pay tax.... It also robs the incentive for someone to go into business since they know the government will rob them of the fruits of their labor..."

You obviously never owned or ran a business.  I have owned four.  Businesses don't pay taxes.  When you purchase something here in Thailand there is a VAT do you pay for that?  No, its added to your bill and THE COMPANY PAYS FOR IT.  When you fill up with gasoline, there is a fuel tax, did you pay for it.  NO THE COMPANY ADDED IT TO THE PRICE OF ITS GAS.  Do you really think that whether it is a real estate tax, a government fee, or an income tax that the company has some magic pot of money that pays for that tax without it impacting the price it sells its products or services for.  

The government in the USA has adopted the slight of hand with taxes to conceal how much it really is taking.  Some from income taxes, others from social security taxes, some from fuel taxes, some from excise taxes, some from import duties, some from company taxes etc.  Now all of those taxes end up in the products and services we buy.  The public would revolt if they were forced to pay all of those come every April 15 but bury them and through slight of hand and mouth declare that 'SOMEONE ELSE IS PAYING THEM. is the modus operandi of our government.  The public foolishly believes that if somehow Amazon is writing the check to the federal government that somehow they are not. 

As to the problem with taxing companies.  If I am a pharmaceutical company based here in the USA and subject to a large tax bill, I compete with pharmaceutical companies in low tax countries like Ireland.  So, I am at a competitive disadvantage.  It encourages me to leave the USA rather than lose market share to a competitor.  That hurts jobs here in the USA and it is jobs that pay the taxes in the end. 

Now if I make a lot of money from being in business, the very first thing I want to do is expand and make even more.  If I make only a little after taxes I not only don't have that incentive, I lack the money taken from me in taxes to fund that expansion. 

As to this tirade about inheritance taxes they are the most unfair of all.  The person in order to have accumulated much money would have either inherited from a person already taxed before, or I would have had to earned it and at the highest tax rates.  So I am taxed once when I earn it and again when I die.  Sorry but that is confiscatory. 

You can blab all you want about the higher marginal rates in the past.  The fact is the deductions in the past were far more generous and as such very few every paid that 90% rate.  And common sense tells you that would you really risk your money in business so that someone could confiscate 90% of what you earned.  

The top 1% of tax payers now already pay more than the combined total of the bottom 90%.  Basic economics.  You subsidize things like mortage interest deduction to encourage behaviors you want to encourage.  You tax things like cigarettes and gas guzzling cars to discourage their  purchase.  So high taxation of the "successful" means you are discouraging their behavior and hence there will be fewer of them.  65% of businesses in the USA fail within 10 years.  20% fail within the first year.  So our current system where the young business is successful and you want to tax the <deleted> out of them while they are earning money is a primary reason why they fail.  The money they should have kept in reserve to fend off bankruptcy when the business cycle has turned bad, had been already taken from them during the good years.  
 

Tax revenue in the USA has continually gone up, but spending by the government has increased faster. 

This is from a 17th century historian who studied the history of "democracies"   

 

15 hours ago, candide said:

You fail to notice the impact of crises (or the absence of crisis).

I am not saying that it is only one administrations fault.  Whether Bush, Obama, Trump, or Biden all have spent money like drunken sailors.  This coming back to normal is a blatant false statement.  Traditionally the spending to GDP has been in the 18% - 20% range.  We are now at $6.6 trillion  in spending in 2021.  The GDP is $23.32 Trillion.  That is 28.3%

You are falling for the narrative that we need to do this because of the pandemic to "curb inflation"  That is as false as the Affordable Care Act was ever about making health care affordable.  All that and the stimulus spending names were to mislead the public into giant giveaways.  All that spending with borrowed money has come with today's inflation.  One way or another the USA now $31 trillion in direct federal debt and an estimated $100 trillion in unfunded mandates for things like social security, medicare and medicaid.  Social Security is a pay as you go program where current tax receipts are funding payouts and medicare and medicaid likewise have no funds but are federal outlays each year.  The technical definition of insolvency is when either your liabilities exceed your assets or your cash flow is insufficient to service your debt.  The very fact the USA has to borrow more money each year to service its debts is testimony to the fact it meets the technical definition of insolvency. 

Yep, documents at Trump were known about and under negotiations between the Trump legal staff and the government over documents in his possession.  The documents were in Mar Largo and given it is home to the former president a compound with secret service protection. 

The Biden documents were concealed and held in part in a garage.  Oh, was it secure?  Well the NY Post had this yesterday showing Hunter with two ladies exiting the home in Joe's Corvette. 

https://nypost.com/2023/01/18/hunter-biden-had-access-to-dads-corvette-stored-in-garage-where-classified-docs-were-found-photos/

On 1/19/2023 at 6:27 AM, heybruce said:

The US government is not spending too much, it is allowing far to many tax loopholes for corporations and the wealthy. 

You  know you liberals are very good at making up "facts" But short on ever providing any documentation to back up your fake assertions. 

I provided that Revenue had quadrupled in the past 20 years.  Despite that spending increased even faster.  See attached chart.  

No matter how much money is increased the government spends more.  As to the companies I can see you are no student of economics. 

First, companies don't pay tax.  They pass it along to their consumers.  A tax is a cost and all costs must be passed on.  So,  having companies pay more in taxes means higher prices and for those who compete globally it puts them at a disadvantage to other nations with little to no taxes on business.  It also robs the incentive for someone to go into business since they know the government will rob them of the fruits of their labor and HINT expansion of business that provides jobs costs money and if they have less left over after taxes it hinders expansion and hence hurts job creation. 

As to wealthy individuals having tax loopholes.  A "loophole" is any legal deduction.  For individuals, a 401(k) is a loophole, deducting mortgage interest is a loophole, having deducting your state and local taxes is a loophole.   Now the top 1% already pay 37% of the total federal tax bill and the top 10% of income earners pay more than the botton 90% combined.  

Note these figures come from the IRS not made up from the crevices of your mind. 

The fact is that though the Federal Government collects far far far more in taxes than it did two decades ago, it is like a drunken sailor and spends even more.  Why? it is essentially buying peoples votes by spending money on programs that people receive benefits from and hence become like the junkie hooked on drugs.  They will continue to vote for those who feed their habit. 

If you refute these numbers.  SHOW ME. Go to the IRS, not some left wing article and show me the hard facts.  Mine come from IRS published numbers. 

As to your ridiculous assertion that the government does not spend to much, here is the spending chart.  Notice the sharp rise. 

The USA for many decades was in the 18% to 19% range of federal spending to GDP.  For 2021 the Federal Govt spent $6.8 Trillion and the total GDP was $23.32 Trillion.  So unless you flunked math that is 29.16%.  If you subtract government spending from GDP because spending is included in GDP you are closer to 46% ration of federal speding to the remainder of GDP which does not include government spending.  

At $6.8 Trillion the government is spending $52,307 for each and every of the 130 million families in the USA.  The median family income is only $70, 284 so the federal government alone spends 74% of what the typical median income is. 

AND YOU REALLY WANT TO TRY AND PEDDLE THE NONSENSE WE DON'T SPEND TO MUCH. 

Historical Tax Share Data

https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays-income-taxes#:~:text=Tax Shares in Tax Year 2020&text=The newly released report covers,percent of all income taxes.

https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-much-the-rich-pay-taxes

3 hours ago, heybruce said:

Correct.  Time to rescind the Republican tax cuts, not limited to those implemented by Mitch McConnell that Trump is credited with.

Wrong Answer.  The problem is not lack of tax revenue.  Federal receipts have gone up 400% in the past two decades.  Despite having far more money, the Democrats with their spending have spent faster than taxes can keep up. Spending as a percent of GDP is now 42.36.  The historical average from 1929 to 2010 was 18.6% of GDP.

The problem is not that we tax too little.  The problem is the USA spends too much.  The 42.36% figure means of every service or product produced in the USA annually the Federal Government spends $42.36 dollars for every $100 earned.  






https://stats.areppim.com/stats/stats_usxrecxspendxgdp.htm

There are "sinister" inferences as to why Trump is dealing with the LIV.  One has to keep mindful of the fact that the PGA Tour had a contract to play one of the majors at Bedminster a course part of the Trump propeties.  They breached that contract and paid a settlement to Trump.  This is nothing more than payback to the PGA Tour for their actions.  It is a trypical Trump response when someone has taking actions detrimental to him.  He responds in kind. 

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/pga-trump-settlement-2022

On 1/14/2023 at 6:10 AM, Scott said:

The US will reach the debt limit on January 19 and then “extraordinary measures” will need to be taken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote in a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. She said that the Treasury Department will pursue those measures, but they will only last a limited amount of time

The current National Debt is $31 Trillion.  There are approximately 130 million families in the USA meaning that each family's share is $238,461.  And somehow the spending and debt should go up? 

At $31 Trillion, the current 10 year treasury bond rate is 3.49%.  Meaning each year the federal government has to pay just over $1 Trillion in interest.  That does not include any amounts the Federal Governent has in unfunded programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. 

And it is just dawning on people that the USA can not nor ever will be able to repay its debts.  The current financial management is akin to using your own personal credit card to finance all your daily spending.  Eventually you can't get more credit and don't earn enough to pay the minimum on the credit card. 

PS. the amount of $31 trillion does not include the amounts in debt by the States, Counties, and Local municipalities.  

Just now, ozimoron said:

I said "actively" not "publicly". You have a certain cognitive dissonance going on about this.

Well sir, there is no such thing as Actively Traded.  If they were traded they would be public.  A privately held company does not trade. DUH. 

3 hours ago, CharlieKo said:

https://www.dol.go.th/lawsection77/Documents/Development/LAND DEVELOPMENT ACT (NO. 2), B.E. 2558 (2015).pdf

Yes thank you. I kept getting the land act that conerned condo's