Donald Trump proposes interest rate caps on credit cards. I commented earlier. Now my readers weigh in.
The following comments and my replies are to my post Trump Proposes a Cap on Credit Card Interest, So Does AOC and Bernie
The competitive self-destruction of the Republican party as we once understood it is on full display today.
The Forgotten People
Reader: Trump wants to help the forgotten people. Trump understands small businesses.
Mish: What partisan nonsense. Please note that AOC and Bernie Sanders support caps and Trump just joined the Socialists. Did I fail to point that out?
The next reader get’s the irony.
I’m Republican and I Love the Free Market
Reader: But I’m Republican and I LOVE the Free Market…unless TRUMP doesn’t like it…then I hate it!!!! /sarcasm
Mish: LOL. One other reader commented “You need a laugh button, Mish 🙂 Some of this is truly high comedy.”
Don’t Tax Social Security
Reader: Why should Social Security be taxed? Tariffs or taxing producers is bad, but I would prefer taxing foreign entities first.
Mish: But I am open to considering any idea of merit if you tell me how you are going to pay for it. This idea will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. So, tell us how you will pay for it.
And pray tell how the hell do you tax foreign entities? If you think tariffs are a tax on foreign entities, you are economically illiterate. That’s a shame given I have discussed this may times.
Bravo!
Reader: Bravo Mish! You are the only one calling trump and GOP out for their growing socialism. This is why I keep saying no politician is going to save anyone, you must focus on your own self being.
Mish: Thanks! I appreciate that. But it is costing me readership. Any criticism of Trump does.
I especially like your comment that you must focus on your own self being. To that I will add: “because government sure won’t.”
Clown Show
Background: I concluded my first post on this subject with: “Trump is trying to outcompete Harris on free money proposals, and now price caps. This is truly beyond pathetic.”
Reader: Pathetic is too technical of a term to describe a Clown Show.
Mish: I can accept that idea.
Better Off Not Lending
Reader: If a credit card company cannot go above 10% while it has to in order to make profit against a nearly bankrupt card holder, we may all be better off if the company just stops lending.
Mish: I agree this is a sorry state of affairs. But who gets to decide what is better for whom? You? Government? Or the free market?
Do we eliminate all the pawn shops and Payday Loan operations too? (Because that is the only alternative).
Is no chance better than some? That is effectively what you are saying.
A Grasp on Reality
Reader: Price controls lead to shortages. Limit the interest rates for risky loans (credit cards) and you’ll have a lack of credit. That’s no problem for me since I pay the balances off immediately, but a lot of folks don’t.
Mish: Some of my readers have a firm grasp on reality without partisanship. Congrats!
No Interest at All
Reader: I propose no interest at all! Charging interest on money is a scam all together.
Mish: Thanks. I’ll make a note.
Mish’s Note to Self: There is no time value on money or on risk of default.
“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
Blame Biden
Reader: Blame all this on Worst President in history Joe Biden & Useless Kamala for destroying America’s economy.
Mish: It would behoove Trump to talk about the economy rather than talk like Bernie Sanders!
Lesson of the Day (Repeated)
You cannot (hmmm, I mean should not) attempt to compete with Democrats on free money handouts. They can always do more or make them look more fair.
Worse yet, Trump is proposing things that are massively inflationary unless he can specify how he will pay for these ideas. But he won’t.
And if you think tariffs will do it, you are only nuts. Besides, tariffs are a regressive tax on consumers.
I will cover tariff proposals separately.
Harris and Trump Regarding Food Costs
If you like ridiculous answers, for more of them please see Ridiculous Answers from Harris and Trump Regarding Food Costs
Both candidates have been asked questions what they would do about the rising cost of food. Let’s discuss their answers.
Kamala’s Changing EV Position
On September 21, I noted Harris Declines to Comment on Her Changing EV Position (Everything Else Too)
“My Values Have Not Changed”
Upon refection, I believe you can take that to the bank.
Her values have not changed. What has changed is Harris is pretending that the policies she supports have changed.
Trump talks too much about the wrong things. Harris won’t talk at all. It’s a very smart policy by Harris.
Why talk when your opponent keeps sticking his foot in his mouth.
This is a genuine clown show.
Thanks Readers.
Your review of the debate is as loaded (naturally) as your initial arguments. But just to repeat my earlier observation: You say apropos of interest rate caps, “But who gets to decide what is better for whom? You? Government? Or the free market?”
In response to your delusional belief that banking, where risk is nationally subsidized and reward privately enjoyed, has anything to do with a free market, I’ll say again: Jee-sus, did you really say “free market”?
let the credit card companies compete for the consumers business> If you are too dumb to go with the card that offers lower rate, that’s on YOU
China limits credit and interest charged by banks. When the CCP tells banks to lend, they must lend. If the people can’t get a legal loan from a bank they turn to the ‘dark money’ system of well organized loan sharks. That has happened before and will happen again. Possibly in the USA.
Eliminating taxes is a simple concept. Instead of taxing as a general pot, use specific taxes for specific purposes. A tax on marijuana goes directly to supplement social security. Since boomers smoke the money is returned and taxes recorded. But greed prevails. This should be a STANDARD tax concept.
Re: Soc Sec. C’mon man. It’s a tax when you pay it. And then when they give it back to you in devalued dollars 50 years later, they tax you again.
That’s bullshit. And you know it. The question of ‘how to pay for it’ is valid. But the tax is second on the list of confiscatory taxes after property tax.
Maybe if they stopped funding 800 military installations and killing hundreds of thousands of foreigners every year they might find a way.
Preface. I am a moderate conservative, and I do not like or support Trump, Kamala, or Biden. I do not pay interest, I make money on my credit cards, and I own stock in two major card issuers that make a decent profit on them. That said, I could support a limit on interest rates because the current system sucks a lot of people into a life of debt slavery. I think 16-18% would be a reasonable range assuming late fees are not slashed. Trumps 10% proposal would result in a large fraction of the population simply loosing access to credit cards unless the card issuers have another revenue source to make up for the substantial default rate on lower fico borrowers. The 15% proposal by Kamala is still low but is less catastrophic to borrowers. It would still result in significant tightening of underwriting resulting in both lower credit limits and denial of credit to lower fico borrowers. In some sense this could be a good thing for them since it would enforce some discipline.
I see no problem with low FICO people getting credit card access restricted. Everyone else subsidizes those losses one way or another. Maybe they should work on boosting their FICO scores. I know you’re talking about the knock on effects of such a thing, but I personally don’t care about that either.
The morons of each side blame the other side. Keep it simple : Trump put a threat : cut c/c rates before I cap rates at 10%.
While Trump is at it, he should also threaten food companies to cut calories per ounce of food. And if Big Food won’t do that, Trump should cap calories. Make America slim again.
Many states have usury laws. But some small states provide a loophole by not capping credit card rates at all. That’s because Big Banks can buy off the states’ Senators with just a few million dollars.
A cap on credit card rates is maybe not a bad idea. It will force credit companies to stop lending to people who most certainly will not be able to pay them back. Credit card interest at 30% or so is really just a form of loan sharking. Anyone who has the money pays those off immediately, using a HELOC if they have to.
The difference between the Harris and the Trump proposal, that you didn’t discuss, is that Harris does not intend to allow the credit companies to modify their loan criteria in response. Trump probably would.
Loan sharking is a bad thing. Lending money to someone at 30% is clearly usury. It needs to be stopped. It is in no way merciful to extend credit to someone who has to accept those terms; they are either incapable of understanding the contract, or on their way to insolvency regardless and the loan just makes things worse.
I agree with your thoughts. See also my separate comment.
went to a Big Box store five miles south of home base.
Lower income working class area.
Self checkout has 12 stations.
Twelve noon on a Sunday afternoon slight overcast sky occasional drizzle.
I was only customer checking out my purchase in whole checkout area.
High credit card cost not usury, uh huh.
This store was Busier during Covid lock down.
No worries, everytjing is just wonderful, media has told me so.
Money simply distributed willy-nilly is like a quaternary aspect of inflation mostly because “free” market theory is actually a delusional fetish that conservatives and libertarians advocate despite the fact that it is chaos market theory because it has no rational barriers within which human freedom can only be a reality.
If you however would discount to the consumer and rebate back to the merchant half of the price of virtually everything at both retail sale and point of loan signing…the mathematical and macro-economic effect would be BENEFICIAL price and asset DEFLATION.
Just keep doing the simple math and simple accounting operations of equal debits and credits that sum to zero…until your poor long acculturated and orthodoxy hungry mind is blown/enlightened.
I don’t understand. Are you saying the merchant only charges a customer half price and then the other half that the customer didn’t pay comes from somewhere else? Where’s the money that gets rebated back to the merchant going to come from?
DO THE MATH AND THE ACCOUNTING!!!! An economic reformation is only a realization away.
Do you have any idea what you were trying to say here? Because I surely don’t. The train of thought seems to have derailed into a word salad.
A $60k automobile costs the consumer $30k because the merchant grants the consumer a 50% discount. The FED or the government rebates the $30k back to the merchant so they are made whole on their price. When they go to Finance the monetary authority gifts the bank 50% of the interest they would garner for the $30k loan in exchange for the bank reducing the principle to $15k. Same process lets the consumer buy a $500k house for $125k. Every commercial agent gets their full price while the consumer gets beneficial price and asset deflation. Do you see it now?
Money creation is entirely accounting whether by the banks or the government. The new idea AKA paradigm is strategically applied monetary gifting with accounting at retail sale, point of loan signing and other places throughout the length of the economic process.
New money is created for half of every sale made? The money supply would increase 10 billion per day going by a figure of 7.24 trillion in 2023 retail sales. (10 billion divided by the feds balance sheet of 7 trillion)* 365 is the money supply up 52%, so that would cause prices to double every year.
If tariffs on foreign goods didn’t impact their bottom line then foreign entities would be indifferent to such tariffs. You can tax income (investment) or you can tax consumption. If you are going to tax consumption you might as well start with imports.
You can have less money to spend or you pay more for goods. I can have a lot less money but have access to cheap E.V.s. Or I can have a lot more money to spend, save and invest but not have access to cheap foreign E.V.s
Personally, I don’t see choosing either option as evidence of being brain dead.
30% isn’t a free market it’s extortion.
It’s an oligarchy of credit card companies. Try living with out using a credit card – pretty darn hard! Some places won’t even take cash or checks. I am a free market guy, but there need to be some guard rails against anti-competitive, abusive behaviour. I never carry a credit card balance over, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think there should be some limits.
No one is making you pay 30%. If you choose to borrow the money, you are only extorting yourself. That’s not really so different from legally poisoning yourself (alcohol, tobacco, drugs, junk food…), or legally throwing your life away (wasting time instead of using it wisely), or any of a thousand other entirely legal ways to put yourself in jeopardy. In short, if you want to borrow money like an adult, you have to accept responsibility for it like an adult.
The IDF attacked several targets in Yemen. It’s a message to Iran.
People might not have to worry about credit cards much longer lol
I don’t care what the IDF does halfway across the globe. That ancient squabble over a piece of pleasant beachfront territory on the Mediterranean is centuries old and won’t end this century either. No one would be dying if the land were near Finland or Latvia, just saying. I just hate the fact that, as a US taxpayer, I am forced to finance one side of the turf war (and probably both sides indirectly).
When the Fed cut rates to zero, banks issued loans at 3.5%/4.5%. Those loans are in the red. The banks rob the little guys to compensate for their losses. Currently bank’s profit margin is high. Fat pigs cut rates before Trump will gets u. Earning report in two weeks.
The credit card interest rate facing folks is concerning but is really in second place.
The Politicians are not talking about the biggest problem which is the Interest payments on the growing Debt of America.
The Government is now paying over $1 Trillion just in Interest –on that ever growing $35 Trillion in Government Debt.
When will any Politician tell us how they will reduce that massively growing Debt and reduce the over $1 Trillion of Interest payments each year ?
They will deal with the debt through a combination of selectively defaulting as a result of war and hyperinflation.
But I would not expect them to actually tell you that. And that is why you hear absolutely nothing related to the subject.
They are going to resort to yield curve control. This will happen when inflation reignites. They will finance government debt at zero or at the very least will below a market rate. That screws savers and will exacerbate inflation. Thats when ultimately the SHTF.
That is what is known as “Erdogan Economics” and is when you will see hyperinflation really take off.
An interesting point but we should be more clear about this:
The government is not really paying $1 trillion in interest. Not like you or I, paying interest on our loans, out of our income.
The government is merely borrowing the interest payments, while rolling the debt over, while borrowing even more for all the excess spending.
When revenue isn’t sufficient to make interest payments without borrowing more, that’s the classic definition of Ponzi finance.
While the government pretends to be paying interest, the market is not actually receiving $1T on net, because the market is forced to buy the $1T in new debt also. ?
This $1T becomes inflation because now the government is spending yet another $1T into the economy, without actually producing anything (more demand without more supply)… instead of holding the line on spending and paying the interest out of taxes without running a deficit.
If banks can’t charge more than 10%, how can they afford to lend to people who won’t pay them back?
We would need to bring back Debtors Prisons
or Workhouses.
Maybe that is what the so-called “15 Minute Cities” will wind up being.
Card losses are around 3-4%. Bank borrow at near zero, charge 30%.
There’s a lot of room in those numbers and gouging being done.
But this is actually a good thing because no one wants to read through dozens of idiot comments so the more clown supporters that disappear the better off we all are when that happens so we can discuss the issues with adults not temper toddlers.
We need rational thinking people that can do basic math here and contribute solutions instead of the emotional hysterics we get on a daily basis. Most of this comes from MAGA people that are emotional about their religious nonsense, their anti-abortion stance, anti-science, anti-vax, anti-logic and other irrational thinking like pet eating immigrants.
Michael Moore “Roger & Me” ate a rabbit. Chinese engineers ate dogs in Africa. Voters care about the economy, inflation and the southern border. Douglas Emhoff cares about abortion.
CEO of Wyeth told Reagan that vaccines were unavoidably unsafe. Stanley Plotkin, the godfather of vaccines recently admitted that vaccines have not been adequately studied for safety, both pre and post marketing. FDA approved Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, which 10 of 11 advisory committee members said didn’t work. Studies on HCQ and Ivermectin were rigged to fail. No need to look further than the FDA for anti-science. Anti vaxxers are on the side of science. Studies show unvaxxed children are healthier than vaxxed children.
LOL you need to get out more and see the real world.
Religion serves a valuable purpose … if you cannot see it, you are the blind one.
There is a spectrum of opinions about abortion because different people have legitimately different life experiences and perspectives. If you are 100% pro-abortion, does that extend to postpartum infanticide? If not, why not? If you are drawing a line somewhere, do you really believe that there’s only one allowed place to draw the line, upon which everyone can logically agree?
As for “anti-science”, that’s a BS label like “conspiracy theory”. One must distinguish “science” from “$cience”: “science” is a method of learning about the universe which anyone can practice. “$cience” is when authoritarian gaslighters with overt or covert financial interests try to sell you something.
Put a different way, much of what we are told by “$cience authorities” is demonstrably wrong. Truth is the first casualty of warfare, it is said, but in reality truth is a casualty of any conflict of interest. The more money or power are at stake for someone, the farther from the truth they will stray. For just one example: There are dozens and dozens of vaccines and medications that have been “FDA Approved” (because “$cience”), only to be pulled from the market later because reality and “$cience” turned out not to be such good friends. For the specific case of the COVID injections, you might reflect on how they had to literally redefine the common word “vaccine” in order to be able to claim it was a “vaccine”… it would not have met anyone’s prior definition since it neither prevented infection nor transmission. That alone should be a red flag that science was being sacrificed for $cience.
In its fundamentals, science only works when people are allowed to challenge the orthodoxy, everyone is able to do their own tests to find the truth, and everyone is able to speak freely about what they are finding and reproduce (or not) the results of others. The ultimate currency in science is credibility. But $cience, in pursuit of wealth and power rather than truth, has sacrificed that credibility and thus divorced itself from science.
As for anti-logic: The anti-logic crowd are found on both sides of the aisle and you will know them because they will say things like, we couldn’t trust scientists regarding tobacco due to conflicts of interest, and yet we should trust other scientists who have absolutely massive conflicts of interest. They will say that we shouldn’t advertise alcohol, tobacco or drugs to children because they might do dumb things… and yet they will say it’s okay to advertise LGBTQ (on one end) or college loans (on both ends) or religion (on the other end) despite the obvious near-identical risks.
As for pet-eating immigrants, I think you have to be there to get it. You probably also have to be there to understand the human trafficking, the prostitution, the criminal gangs and all the other good things we imported. But when the $cience itself says they let in nearly a million criminals via neglecting their duties to enforce written immigration law … you will get the consequences of that anywhere.
Note the same banksters that claim free market principles when setting interest rates are the first to feed at the government troughs when their bad loans blow up in their faces.
True, but the fault lies with the goobermint that doesn’t tell them to piss off. W’s Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson really f’d up by translating the explicit language on Fannie Mae mortgage-backed securities “not guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the United States” to mean “we’ll backstop you to the moon”. Same with “too big to fail”.
Back at the time I saw a suggestion that instead of bailing out banks (what does that mean?), let the bank fail (what does that mean?), and out of its assets create a public government owned bank.
At the time that banks in Cyprus failed they talked of a new policy call it “bail in”, where the largest depositors lose their money, in order to save that bank.
In a sense, that was how bankruptcy of General Motors (GM) was done. Shareholders and secured debtors lost big money so that unionized workers’ pensions would be saved.
The problem is we don’t have a free market, we have a manipulated market. Why not provide some protection to the poor rubes that are being preyed on by the vulture capitalist?
More smoke and mirrors during the heightened political season.
I am a 35 year excellent credit (790) customer of Amex. I have a flawless payment history with Amex (and all).
Amex charges me 27.3% interest. That’s usury.
Capping at something more reasonable is not “socialism”. Just as we don’t allow monopolies is not socialism.
I find your treatment of this topic lacking insight, glib.
Especially since the banksters are subsidized by the tax payers whenever they get in trouble.
But why do you need to use Amex? Who is forcing you to do it? Credit unions offer credit cards with interest rates around 8% or so, there are plenty of alternatives. There are literally thousands of institutions that offer credit cards at different rates.
But who decides what is “reasonable?” That’s the crux of the issue. If 27.3% is too high is 26%? 20%? 5%? 1%?
Why stop at credit cards? Why not set the price of every grocery store item at $1 so everyone can afford it? What do you think would happen then?
Or conversely, pay everyone $200/hr so we would all be rich!
LOL – why not do both, fix all prices at $1 and all wages at $200/hour! There may not be anything on the shelves, but we’ll all be rich!
“Why do you need to use Amex?” — Ans: irrelevant question.
“Who decides what is reasonable?” — Ans: the same who decide what is a monopoly.
“Why not set the price of food?” — Ans:food is an entirely different market than the few credit card issuers. Food isn’t being marked up anywhere near equivalent to Amex’s 27% for excellent credit customers.
I did not find your reply advanced the issue being discussed at all, just retoricism
I pay zero interest. I pay off my card before interest can be applied. In fact, I always have a positive balance on my card. The positive balance usually covers accumulated small purchases. If I make a large purchase I pay it off within twenty four hours.
I’m not rich. I just don’t live an extravagant/self indulgent lifestyle.
Bully for you, Ron.
The issue is the punishing rates credit card insurers are charging.
why not just use your debit card then??
Not everyone qualifies for the Amex card.
It sounds to me that you have let Amex gaslight you into thinking that you’re a valued member of their club, and that you should have privileges as a result. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
In reality, you’ve trapped yourself into what they see as their walled garden, so that you are now paying captive market prices for their services. Much as if you were buying food in an airport or stadium instead of outside in a freer market. There are plenty of ways to borrow money for less than 27%, and yet you stay with AmEx … why?
That demonstrates exactly why AmEx and all the other big banks won’t pay their existing customers a market interest rate on savings or checking account balances. Nor will bankers merely charge a reasonable few-% spread over T-bills on credit card balances. They know that, despite good credit history, many people are lazy idiots who would prefer to give up a few % in interest, month after month, rather than putting in an hour or two of effort to find a better counterparty for their financial needs.
However, the cure for this laziness is not to have someone else apply price controls on interest rates. Economic history shows that is a losing choice. The cure is to better implement the Law of One Price – banks should not be paying new customers higher interest on deposits than existing customers – banks should not be charging different rates either. In addition, there should be a much more competitive financial marketplace, not just a few giant banks all colluding with the same evil practices to exploit their customers.
What’s ironic is that there are millions of people with worse credit histories than yours, who are much better off financially in terms of the rates they are paying and receiving, because they refuse to tolerate the modern “Bank Robbery” – the kind where the banks silently rob you!
P.S. If your savings aren’t earning at least 4% somewhere right now, you’re letting yourself be robbed there too.
Lot of talk there, NAI.
The issue is the credit card companies practicing usery.
As bad as a monopoly charging exorbitant prices. Society has never stood for that. There is a place for government intervention in market abberations. Even a conservative as I would agree.
Reminds me of a quip I heard recentlyu from a former ATF agent wehn asked whether crime was worse in El Paso or Tucson: “Different circus, same clowns”
It sounds from this article like you think the free market always produces a better outcome than what a regulation can do. When you mention the free market, it is always with the implication it is obviously better than an alternative regulation. Sort of like someone says “we need this regulation” and you go “…but… free market!!” Are there any examples you can point to where you’ve seen regulation do better than the free market? Just trying to get a quick gauge on where your head is at.
I am always going to lean to a free market solution
So monopolies are ok with you.
Banks don’t waste time on small business. When a small business have to pay rent, payroll or invoices their only option is c/c zero rate for eight months, plus fees, before 25%/30%. The banks rob the little guys. Trump wants to help them and the banks. By cutting rates by a half vol will rise and the recycle bin will deflate.
When small businesses shut layoffs start. If they get help from Trump they can expand.
Theoretically layoffs will start before the business shuts down.
Theoretically.
/s
Layoffs, workers tossed to the streets, without a half a million packages, or less working hours, is not a theory. When that happens the economy shrinks.
If your business can’t make rent or payroll or cover invoices for 8 months straight, you should fix your business or not be in business.
We’re around the peak of a market cycle, and people should be aware of this fact.
https://singlelunch.com/2024/09/market_peak_underrated/
Been “peaking” for yeas and years now. 2019 sure looked like a peak to me, then the miracle microbe arrived just in time to allow the fraudsters to change the rulebook on money printing. Absolutely everything has been in scam/fraud mode ever since. My mother went to the emergency room for a spider bite a few months ago. They put her in a room overnight, told her she was fine the next morning, then billed medicare 25K for her “covid ward” stay. This is 2024, not 2020 and she was not even diagnosed with covid. This is how we are doing single-payer health care in this country while telling the taxpayer and the rest of the world it is still private.
It’s the essence of a market peak that everyone is all-in, and therefore oblivious to the fact that when everyone else is all-in, the market can only go down.
The catholic church preached in the middle ages that charging interest on loans was a deadly sin. Marx wrote about surplus value as a robbery.
Neither St. Thomas, Marx, Trump or Sanders have explained how to estimate that marvelous number, the Fair Interest Rate.
“So, tell us how you will pay for it.”
The answer to that should be obvious to a libertarian. Cut spending..
There really is not all that much “spending” though I agree that a huge amount is either waste fraud or some way of covering up payments to space aliens or something. But the problem is the massive transfer payments that make up 70 percent (prob more now) of the federal budget.
There is no constituency to get rid of vet benefits Medicare social security govt pensions interest payments student loans housing subsidies food stamps disability payments. The list is endless
They could cut the secret budget for military and intelligence, but they would quickly meet their Maker due to the conspiracy that Mish doesn’t believe in.
Half a trillion goes to “transfer payments” that are not SS. I am sure 200B of that is plain fraud. It would be a start.
“You are the only one calling trump and GOP out for their growing socialism.”
The people want free stuff. Politicians that fail to provide do not get elected. Until the economic house of cards collapses nothing will change.
I guess I see this is a much different way than you do Mish. While I do agree, that Trumps messaging has tilted more left than I am comfortable with, it’s not the same as being a Fraud or Phony in his overall stances. He hasn’t, and his “Core Values” are much intact, but sidelined a bit at the moment, playing political catch up.
I see Trump playing from behind, as the MSM acts as “Brown Shirts” for the Administration in Power. So do most all News Channels, most all of Hollywood, and most all Unions just to name a few. These happen to also be the Largest Outflow of Information and Voter Base in many cases.
As a result, to offset these large one sided tilt of the “Flow of Information” Trump has to wallow, er play in these arenas too. If for no other reason, but to try and garner some of the votes being stolen by overwhelming disinformation and manipulation of said information. People who know and believe in Trump, understand he is gifted, in this area, with a personality that fits perfectly, with what has to be done.
I am personally much more wired about “How Far They Are Willing To Go! Based on what I have seen so far, it’s way too far, and if something isn’t done to address that, the rest in virtually unnecessary isn’t it? It simply won’t matter…
Tump just trumping Kamala in this political theater might as well say what ever you want truth doesn’t seem to matter anymore!
Just get elected and do what you want. If we can’t hold the candidates to their statements what does it matter?
My understanding was that President Trump was planning to replace other taxes with tariffs.
Yes this would be regressive and would lead to massive shortages. It would also be more expensive to consimers than imposing a national sales tax or a vat. National sales tax is a non starter due to states relying on sales taxes. Vat is scary because it is a hidden tax though so are tariffs.
Real problem is really not how fed govt taxes but that it borrows 30 percent of what it “spends” and that most spending is transfer payments
I’m sure that there many Trump supporters here and some clearly anti-Trump folks. I’m a results person. 4 years of Trump had better results than 4 years of Biden/Harris. That said, it is definitely trying to tolerate the misogyny and childishness of his tweets and of his having middle-school level names for all kinds of people .. republican, democrat, and other. I prefer mean tweets and low inflation to high inflation … but that just means my Trump vote will be made while I hold my nose. I would have far preferred Gov DesSantis or Vivek … but here we are. I have no idea why Trump is suddenly espousing bad/socialist (but I repeat myself) ideas or even why he is promising what he knows he cannot deliver (deport them all on day 1). If I was a thinking Maga person … I would have to ask how is he going to deport everyone on day 1 when he couldn’t even build the wall in his last term? It is not his fault that he didn’t get the wall done and it won’t be his fault that he can’t “deport them all” (much less do so on day 1) … but to promise it is either just pandering to a relatively radical base … being ingenuous … or being batsh– crazy. So the history of theatre in presidential contests continues … and maybe ramps up a little.
Well stated
Politicians have to pander to the idiots too, on both sides
The way I look at it is that you are not voting for the person as much as the ideology, principles and beliefs that they represent. If you don’t want this to be the last time you vote, the choice should be clear.
I think Trump’s name-calling is one of his best antics, and he has many. But at least he’s genuine. There isn’t a single thing about Kamala that isn’t staged or an outright lie.
Trump is a marketing genius. Clown, buffoon, liar, yes, absolutely but whatever, the man knows how to sell a brand. The Trump brand is I am perfect, I never lose, and as such, together we can never lose. Pure lunacy, but people love a winner. But somewhere along the line, he learned that some large percentage of the (under-educated) population never got beyond the schoolyard and they LOVE the childish labels. It’s part of the reason I hate being an ardent Trump supporter myself, but hey, if all the establishment types hate him, and the bullets all seem to go towards his direction, he must be doing something right by the citizens.
I hear that!
Results? Every modern economy was wracked by the post-pandemic hangover, but the result in the case of Biden/Harris was that the US did better than others. Additionally, the US had already begun a recession under Trump when the pandemic started. I think it is myopic to compare the 4 years of one and the 4 years of the other without taking into account the baseline for each as established by circumstances. Doing so could lead to making a wrong assessment and thereby a wrong choice.
Keep telling yourself The threatening fossil fuel companies, ending leases, canceling pipelines, and generally making life impossible for fossil fuels had no impact. Impact. Keep telling yourself that opening the border is not going to cost this country for the next 2 to 3 decades. Keep telling yourself a whole lot of things that will help you sleep at night
People buy into the BS promises because it’s easy. It’s even easier for them to blame thier politician of choice (or the opposing party) for not delivering on said promises even though they knew, deep down, the politician couldn’t possibly keep thier promises.
It takes almost no effort to believe a politican, vote for them, then ingest media that biases towards the voter’s preferred politician or political ideology. Few care to know the truth. Why? Well because that shines the light on thier own foolishness and lack of accountability. Most all, it shows that one’s Ego is running the show, and the Ego absolutely hates being wrong or challenged.
Most of what you said is true, but if you can’t see the diffeence in 2016 – 2020 vs 2020 to 2024 … then you’re not dealing with reality.
Politicians are running on ideas, not results.
Trumps idea is to deport them all. Even though he can’t, the idea is that he plans to deport some and be strong on stopping illegals. That’s the message he’s giving and what you are voting for when you vote for him.
This is why sound bite memes are WAY better than espousing long winded explanations that explain how you plan to do things. You need to get across the idea of what you want to do.
Taxing Social Security payments that exceed what the recipient put in, incidentally as a tax, seems fair. But as it is now, it amounts to double taxation.
Not sure why your comment got negative responses. It IS double taxation. If I made $1,000 … they took $80 (between SS and Medicaid). I did NOT get to deduct the $80 from fed or state … so I already did pay taxes on it. Now when I get back what I put in … they tax it again. Not sure why some folks can’t seem to understand that. I think that … after they have given me back everything I put in and everything my employer put in on my behalf … then sure, tax it (even though it hasn’t kept up with inflation for those of who paid a boatload of it … so they’re actually taxing a loss as if it’s a gain … but that’s where it’s good to be King … aka government).
The point you make is why only 85% of SS is taxed. Supposedly the 15% break is to offset the taxes you already paid.
And if you really are broke none of it is taxed anyway. The whole “provisional income” calculation is a pain in butt that could be simpler, but what do you expect from a committee of lawyers.
If you get hit with the 85% on top of a year with big cap gains … it is hard to not see double taxation.
“Fair” is always in the eye of the beholder. And “double taxation” is such a simplistic critique when real economic analysis is always more complicated.
First, this “double taxation” is really just a tax on income (and I know a lot of people here hate that, period). But it’s not any different than an income tax on interest, dividends, capital gains, etc. – all of which came from ‘extra’ earnings on original savings from income. But it’s still on earnings.
And again, that’s way too simplistic since no one is taxed on the first X amount of income received each year with standard deductions, credits, etc. So most SS income is not taxed at all for most people.
And your two’s “solution” is so administratively difficult, and rife for continuous politicking. SS is paid out over your remaining lifetime, and not a set amount. So do you want to keep track of all your and your employers’ contributions over your entire lifetime so that you can ‘deduct’ them from your annual SS payments on your tax forms every single year, and then go to ‘extra’ taxation years later when your ‘contributions’ have been exhausted? Wow, that’s a lot of accounting time and effort (and pain in the ass) just so you can say you weren’t double-taxed. And BTW, you did not pay federal taxes initially on your employer’s ‘extra’ SS payments on your behalf. That is the reality of simplistic solutions for Internet tax professionals.
And what if you could convince everyone else to convince Congress to remove taxation on SS? As Mish says, how are you going to pay for it? Higher initial taxes on income, maybe? LOL
We pay for it just like everything for the past50-100 yrs – money is created from nothing at the Fed and spent into existence. Just need to find out how to extinguish excess “money”
Complexity has never been a reason to avoid a tax in the past. Our tax code is one of the most complex in the world and somehow it always leaves room for Al Sharptons and others to make millions and pay nada. The 85% hits in full strength when it sits on top of a year where you’re paying a big cap gain (also a scam when a 20 year investment that keeps up with inflation (ie: same buying p ower as at the beginning) punishes you severely … leaving you with less buying power). So I think I’m a little more anti-tax than most … especially in light of what they do with the money … and the fact that our founding fathers never saw the fed taking anywhere near 10%.
Unless you are getting some crazy high amounts of SS, it’s likely you aren’t being taxed on very much of it.
Single payer standard deductions is 13K+. That means you can collect 1100 a month and pay tax on zero dollars of it.
that 85% is not based just on how much SS you get … it is your total taxable income. So if you sell an investment and get a big capital gain … that impacts how much of your SS is taxed. If you greet people at Walmart … that impacts how much of the SS is taxed.
That was great read, thank you!
Mish: Thanks! I appreciate that. But it is costing me readership. Any criticism of Trump does.
Who cares – the morons can shoot some more Operation Warp Speed and cure themselves of their stupidity
I see: you are the arbiter of who is a nincompoop and who is tolerable. How about finding something more entertaining for us: give us YOUR thoughts on the subject matters at hand rather than ad hominems.
thats the sign of a modern day liberal. All they can do is criticize, well now today its actually destroy anyone that does not think like them.
They have no ideas left because almost all of theirs has led to destruction, famine, war and death.
Its all they have left.
‘liberal’ hahahahahaha… that’s a good one!
Here are my political leanings
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/what-if/
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/who-runs-the-world
Would you still classify me as a liberal?
BTW – I do not vote.. ever… I do not attend pro wrestling events either nor watch them on Tee Vee – I don’t even have a Tee Vee hahahahaha
How about I give you … A MIRACLE!!!
Recent photos of Trump have raised eyebrows, particularly given his former doctor, Ronny Jackson’s statements. The medical practitioner had previously stated that a bullet had severely damaged the ex-president’s ear during the assassination attempt.
Despite Jackson’s claims that the bullet had blown off part of Trump’s ear, the new images of Trump meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu show no visible scarring or damage.
Click to see the photos https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/lets-take-a-look-at-donald-trumps
Ponder this… cnn hates trump… cnn does not want trump elected… cnn will do ANYTHING to prevent him from being elected.
Why is cnn not asking how his ear healed in two weeks – and without any scarring?