Seen here in the comments.
Sunday, July 23, 2017
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Income inequality has increased really for just one reason: Growth of owner occupied housing is in decline
Homeownership is the ticket to the middle class, and fewer and fewer tickets are being issued:
Your mortgage interest deduction is only eighth in the latest list of top things on which government claims it loses revenue
But libertarians especially hate it. Expect more articles telling you it's got to go as tax reform talk heats up in Congress.
Here are the top 20 "tax loss expenditures" for 2016-2020:
1. Exclusion of employer contributions for health care and insurance: $863 billion
2. Lower tax rates on dividends and long term capital gains: $678 billion
3. Income made by controlled foreign corporations: $587 billion
4. Contributions made to IRAs and 401k plans: $584 billion
5. Pension plan contributions: $424 billion
6. Earned Income Tax Credit: $373 billion
7. Deductions taken for state and local income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes: $369 billion
8. Deductions taken for mortgage interest on owner occupied homes: $357 billion
9. Obamacare "subsidies": $327 billion (what a laugh: they raise the cost, give you a subsidy, and count the subsidy as a tax-free gift)
10. Child tax credit: $271 billion
11. Expensing depreciable business property: $248 billion
12. Deductions taken for charitable contributions: $231 billion
13. Social Security benefits: $214 billion
14. Municipal bond income: $195 billion
15. Deductions taken for taxes on real property: $180 billion
16. Capital gains taxes excluded at death: $179 billion
17. Medical expenses and over the counter medications under cafeteria plans: $169 billion
18. Capital gains taxes excluded on sale of principal residence: $166 billion
19. Life insurance proceeds: $128 billion
20. Deduction for income from domestic production activities: $102 billion.
Total revenue the government claims it's "losing" because of its "benevolent" tax policy on these items: $6.645 trillion over five years, or $1.329 trillion annually.
My, how nice of them.
Friday, July 21, 2017
Justin Raimondo is right, and Coulter and Nehlen are wrong: Afghanistan is the world's first narcostate, supplying over 75% of the world's heroin
Nuke Afghanistan's poppy fields, and you solve a lot of the world's problems. Raimondo is right, Coulter and Nehlen are wrong. Mexico isn't the "source". It's the conduit.
From the New York Times in 2013, here:
Afghanistan is already the world’s largest producer of opium, and last year accounted for 75 percent of the world’s heroin supply. “The assumption is it will reach again to 90 percent this year,” said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the United Nations’ top counternarcotics official here.
China per capita cigarette consumption is 114% higher than US
The Chicoms consume about 4.7 cigarettes per day per capita, about 7.1 packs a month, despite recent attempts to tax the habit out of existence (2350 billion cigs in 2016 divided by population of 1.379 billion).
Americans consume 2.2 cigarettes per day per capita, about 3.3 packs a month (258 billion cigs in 2016 divided by population of .3231 billion).
Life expectancy in the US is 79 years, in China 76 years.
Deaths per 100,000 from coronary heart disease in China are pushing 100, in the US 78.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Inquiring minds want to know: Is it cheaper to stop drugs by building a wall or nuking the opium fields of Afghanistan?
Each one can incinerate about 50 square miles.
Afghanistan has about 780 square miles devoted to opium production.
Number of B61 bombs needed: just 16.
Cost $320 million.
Hundreds of bombs left over to enlighten other ne'er-do-wells.
Three pleasant outcomes: 1) Drugs eliminated at the source; 2) Afghan War ends immediately; 3) Drug mules and gangs stop coming over the border.
I say we nuke 'em.
Supremes intervene again to uphold Trump right to ban 24,000 refugees awaiting entry
From the story here:
The high court on Wednesday blocked Watson’s order as it applies to refugees, but not the expanded list of relatives. The justices said the federal appeals court in San Francisco should now consider the appeal. It’s not clear how quickly that will happen.
In the meantime, though, up to 24,000 refugees who already have been assigned to a charity or religious organization in the U.S. will not be able to use that connection to get into the country.
The Reagan GDP miracle is a complete myth: It was all government spending (on defense)
And it set a horrible precedent for the dramatic overspending of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, which has sent us on a course to oblivion. You can argue it was necessary to defeat the USSR, but you can't argue that baseline spending (in black) has done anything but go up, up, up to dangerous new levels as a result (notice the baseline Jimmy Carter inherited from liberal Republicanism, for which he got the blame from Ronald Reagan, which wasn't very nice of the old man who went on to bequeath a similar giant new baseline to his successor, G.H.W. Bush).
No, the real miracle was the pathetic loser in Iran, Jimmy Carter, who spent the least in the post-war for his additional GDP, followed by Bill Clinton.
Of course, the spending is all the prerogative of the Congress. The president proposes but the Congress disposes, as the saying goes.
Beware libertarian politicians preaching balanced budgets, as well as utopian infrastructure spending enthusiasts promising the moon and liberal Republicans selling government spending as security to senior citizens at the expense of younger Americans in a time of protracted war. They have delivered little beyond $20 trillion in debt.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
These two women voted to repeal Obamacare in 2015, but now they refuse to
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| Shelley Moore Capito -- WV |
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| Lisa Murkowski -- AK |
Turncoats Shelley Moore Capito and Lisa Murkowski said Tuesday they’ll oppose a repeal of the Affordable Care Act
Capito and Murkowski should be run out of the party on a rail. They both voted for repeal last time.
Story here.
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