If you’re in the habit of shopping for the holidays early and want to get a head start this year on Thanksgiving Day, don’t bother stopping at Nordstrom. It’ll be closed.
The leading fashion retailer announced its doors will close Thursday, Nov. 28.
Affecting more than 100 stores in 35 states, the closure is part of a Nordstrom full-line and Nordstrom Rack tradition.
“This is how we’ve approached the holidays as long as anyone here can remember,” Nordstrom spokesman Colin Johnson said. […]
Breaking a 155-year-old tradition, Macy’s announced in mid-October that it would open on Thanksgiving Day at 8 p.m. Other retailers, such as JCPenney and Toys“R”Us, are betting on the holiday to increase sales by remaining open and expanding their operating hours.
Flyers were posted in Nordstrom stores announcing the closure with big lettering that read, “HAPPY THANKSGIVING.”
Indeed.
Good for Nordstrom’s
This a refreshing change from the norm. Most big department stores in my area had Christmas merchandise out while still selling Halloween paraphernalia. Kudos to Nordstrom”s
Yes, that’s the way it should be, Nordstrom. Other retailers, scared mostly because: Obama’s latest economy-damping mechanizations, are reacting to the news that this Christmas shopping season – spending spree might be the worst since ’09.
It’s a damn shame the Christmas holiday has devolved to a feeding frenzy of spending and gifting, but that’s a whole ‘nother concern.
Oh, and beware ‘Black Friday‘.
Good for Nordstrom’s, although since the advent of Amazon and the like, I never leave the friendly confines of the house for shopping purposes.
On the other hand, I noticed a week or two back that Home Depot was selling replicas of the pitiful tree from A Charlie Brown Christmas. You can apparently get the item from Amazon — in musical and non-musical varieties.
I seem to remember the cartoon being unique for eschewing the commercialism of Christmas to emphasize the holiday’s real meaning, even quoting Luke 2 to convey that meaning without any possible ambiguity. I could understand MAKING a similar tree to remind you of that message, but not buying a licensed and branded replica.
Hahahahahaha.
If you’ll blame Obama for stores being open on Thanksgiving, you’ll blame Obama for anything.
*sigh* Still with the reading comprehension problems, steve?
Obama is being blamed for the shitty economy, not for store opening early. Retailers want to post some gains in the final quarter before their books for the year.
Apparently, there is nothing Barry can do that can make you detach yourself from his ass. You’re like a remora.
Why not? After all, it the failing Obama economy that is forcing stores to do things they wouldn’t normally do, just to stay afloat.
How’s that REAL minimum wage of $0.00/hour working out for all those people now out of work?
I think when he read about Truman’s “The buck stops here”, he forgot that Truman DIDN’T mean the entire economy.
Damn everyone for not conforming to steve’s cartoon view of them.
Drum, the problem is that Barry is Truman from the Jim Carrey movie. He just hasn’t figured out that this is real life and he is on film wrecking havoc from sea to shining sea.
Man. That reply of mine at 9:09 reads like Chinglish.
Retailers want to post some gains in the final quarter before their books for the year.
Before they close their books, that should read.
“He’s not being blamed for stores opening early.”
“Why not blame him for stores opening early.”
The rate at which you PWers contradict each other while claiming intellectual superiority is just dazzling.
Drum, did you read those studies about past increases to the minimum wage having negligible impact on employment? Because you keep talking like you’re unaware of them.
How many jobs would big cuts to the federal government create?
I already told you those studies are bullshit, steve. You will find no confirmation of the claim that raising the minimum wage raises employment. Anywhere.
How are endless layers of bureaucracy cost effective? If you are looking to the federal government for guidance on this matter, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
The rate at which you PWers contradict each other while claiming intellectual superiority is just dazzling.
It isn’t a contradiction, moron. One is saying that he currently isn’t, and the other is wondering why not. Reading is Fundamental.
Because you keep talking like you’re unaware of them.
Well, when you make something – ANYTHING – more expensive, consumers will buy less of it. You have yet to explain why you think that the Law of Supply and Demand don’t work in this single instance, because I’m seeing double-digit unemployment for those most likely to be earning that minimum wage – teens with no work experience and the illiterate graduating from today’s schools.
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/09/09/the-teenage-unemployment-crisis/
“In 1999, slightly more than 52 percent of teens 16 to 19 worked a summer job. By this year, that number had plunged to about 32.25 percent over June and July. It means that slightly more than three in 10 teens actually worked a summer job, out of a universe of roughly 16.8 million U.S. teens.”
Good thing those teens are considered children until they are 26, isn’t it?
How many jobs would big cuts to the federal government create?
A hell of a lot more than making the government even bigger would create. Care to try it and see, or are you just trying to be snarky because you have no other actual data to present?
It’s simple. Letting business people keep more of their own money will allow those who own and run their own businesses hire more, invest more, and upgrade their business, which opens up jobs all over the place. More people have work, they will have money to spend on entertainment and eating out, which is where a majority of your minimum wage jobs exist (restaurants, theaters, amusement parks, and the like).
But by all means, let’s give our entire paycheck to the government, because they have been SO efficient at making sure that the money they get is properly spent, and the programs they have are always so effective at solving the alleged problems they were created to solve.
How many trillions have been spent in the “War on Poverty” started by the “Great Society”? All that it has managed is to get entire generations on government subsistence, with not a single person actually made rich through receiving welfare. Obama has added two people onto the food stamp rolls for every job he has allegedly created during his time in office. Would you consider that a “success”?
My teenaged son has a part-time job at a local ice cream parlor/burger joint. He makes minimum wage and so does everyone else who works there, excepting management. Recently, they have been trimming labor costs and cutting everyone’s hours to the bone. Sonny is working 10-18 hours a week at minimum wage less (about) 28% taxes: state, local, county, city.
Raising the minimum wage means firing someone and parsing out the hours to the staffers that are left.
Unlucky firee then gets to collect unemployment benefits.
How is this a bonus for anyone?
Good on Nordstroms. But it pisses me off that we have to give someone or some organization an “Attaboy” for doing what should be normal, everyday, decent behavior.
Feature, not bug.
Unlucky firee then gets to collect unemployment benefits.
Paid for by taking yet more from those “lucky” enough to still be working.
Not to mention that making labor (a vital part of the price of anything bought in our world, from food to gas to cars to the chewing gum Slappy’s mother still has to keep cutting out of his hair) more expensive makes EVERYTHING more expensive, so people will be able to buy even less with the ever-shrinking percentage of what part-time paychecks they have left.
Slappy, did you know that the outrageous union packages thought up by the UAW adds almost $2,000 to the price of every “American-made” automobile? Ever wonder why comparable foreign cars are always cheaper? That’s why. Just imagine what families could do with that money, and how many other jobs would be created to fill the needs of the people with that extra money…
Or, just look at what Detroit has become and realize that this is the future you envision for the whole country…
By the way, did I miss it, or did hellomynameisliar/readingcomprehensionchallenged ever post the details of the sweet, l33t health insurance package he claimed he could getting from his exchange?
“…could get…”
Greetings:
Certainly, this years retail lunacy, Christmas (That’s still allowed, no?) commercials in early November and now even more stores being open on Thanksgiving Day, is another stark reminder of how lost America has become.
And that’s from a guy who has never shopped on a Sunday and, hopefully, never will.
Yeah, I blame O for the stores opening on Thanksgiving. They’re desperate for sales. Walmart is advertising crazy deals like $98 for a 32″ flat screen just to try to entice people inside. Would they be doing that if their customers were flush will all the cash they’re making in this “robust recovery?”
I’m sure all those Sale signs and Christmas decorations littering Nordstrom’s bright and early on Friday just sprung out of the blue while their employees were all at home munching on turkey the day before.
Sheesh, just because a store doesn’t have its doors open for shopping doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not making their employees work on Thanksgiving.
It does mean the store will have even that much more of a glut on Friday, since their customers were denied any shopping on Thursday. Good plan! Way to increase those crazy crowds.
I don’t care either way. Thursday, Friday, etc…you have to be nuts to shop Thanksgiving weekend anyway.
Never mind being unemployed and uncertain about the future — though that will depress holiday sales as is being predicted — what about the impact of medical insurance premium hikes and policy cancellations?
Some people will consider buying a can of peanut brittle (containing actual, edible peanut brittle) to be splurging this Christmas.
I decided long ago that you have to be nuts to shop in person for Christmas gifts, regardless of the day or weekend.
When I was a kid it was fun sometimes to go to the mall and go Christmas shopping, but that was before the Cabbage Patch Kids craze and the obligatory “this year’s Cabbage Patch Kids!” advertising blitz every year thereafter.
You confuse the ability to measure something with the ability to explain it. You’re also relying very heavily on your intuition to explain a complex system – which is dangerous. You supply no evidence, which is telling. Why is the universe expanding at an accelerating pace? No one knows, but that doesn’t mean the phenomena doesn’t exist.
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf
And you claim to grasp the basics. Laying off 1/2 a million people and cutting a few hundred billion in federal spending is a *subtraction* to the economy. Unemployment goes up. GDP goes down. This is not debated by anyone.
And now you conflate government spending cuts with government tax cuts. This is as 101 as it gets. They’re not the same thing. You could cut taxes as a way to stimulate the economy. I’m cool with that – esp if they target the bottom of the economic spectrum. But you have to accept that it increases the deficit. You cool with that?
You’re just a blithering idiot now. “not a single person actually made rich through receiving welfare.” is such a non-sequiter that it can’t even be responded to. However, let it be noted that there are a significant number of rich people who were, at some point in their life unfortunate enought to benefit from government assistance.
Giggle.
And Mitt Romney’s effective tax rate is about 15%. Golly. Maybe Mitt’s taxes should go up a little and your son’s should go down. Is that really redistribution? Class warfare?
Government employment doesn’t create GDP, you blithering idiot.
Christ. I’m having conversations with people that don’t even grasp basic definitions.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp
When the government gets to define GDP, GDP means what our political masters want it to mean.
But in the real world, a nation’s gross domestic product would involve actual creation of economic value — which government employment cannot actually do. Ideally, the government redirects wealth into things that benefit the public, the emphasis on redirect.
In practice, government also redistributes wealth
into things that benefitto people individually, a gross violation of the social contract regardless of whether the individuals are rich and powerful, or poor and “disenfranchised.”(Edited for clarity.)
Neither activity creates economic value. A government definition of GDP that includes them is, like most things the federal government does these days, fraudulent.
You confuse the ability to measure something with the ability to explain it.
I am explaining it exactly as it is. Something becomes more expensive, people buy less of it. Why? Because they have the choice of NOT buying it, and maybe buying something different. Movie ticket prices go up? More people try miniature golf instead. Or going to the library. Or even pirating the movie they want from any of a thousand sites.
When people have options, they will always choose the one that hurts least. Your solution is to take those options away, and call it “freedom”.
You supply no evidence, which is telling.
That would be like us arguing at the beach about the existence of sand. The examples are too numerous to list, and only your own stupidity keeps you from recognizing that you are acting in exactly the same way, and denying it the whole time. Why aren’t you spending the extra few hundred dollars a month on car insurance that the really pricey agencies would offer? Because you have cheaper alternatives. Supply and Demand at work in your own life, and you want ME to provide you with examples?
Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.
However, let it be noted that there are a significant number of rich people who were, at some point in their life unfortunate enought to benefit from government assistance.
Yep, right up until THEY GOT BACK ON THEIR FEET AND STARTED DOING THINGS FOR THEMSELVES. Thank you for proving my point. There is a MASSIVE distance between “at some point in their life” and “Life of Julia”.
Giggle.
Right up there with your lack of comprehension of S&D is your recognition of sarcasm. But you are stupid, and need to have these things pointed out to you.
You’re welcome.
And Mitt Romney’s effective tax rate is about 15%.
You mean on all that money he was investing in businesses so that they could hire people and expand is taxed at a lower rate than those who work directly for themselves? Maybe if we PUNISH people who try to help start-up companies and companies looking to expand and grow, that will turn things around!
How about we lower taxes for EVERYONE (since 15% of $10 million is VASTLY more than 28% of $8,000, even in a progressive math book), and cut government spending a whole bunch? You want Clinton-era tax rates, then how about we go back to Clinton-era spending levels?
Christ. I’m having conversations with people that don’t even grasp basic definitions.
You deny the existence of Supply and Demand and have the gall to say this?
There’s a Mr. Kettle on Line 2.
You could cut taxes as a way to stimulate the economy. I’m cool with that – esp if they target the bottom of the economic spectrum. But you have to accept that it increases the deficit.
Not at all. You simply cut spending to equal the level of income you now have, just like every single person, family, business and multinational conglomerate on the planet has to do. You only have a deficit when you spend more than you take in.
What was it you were saying about people not understanding basic definitions?
Because poor people are the ones who hire people and sign their paychecks. Got it.
Oh, and one other thing: The bottom of the economic spectrum (as you call it) pays less than 1% of all taxes.
It made news a few years back when Exxon-Mobil paid more in corporate taxes than the bottom 50% of US income tax payers did – COMBINED. You would argue that they need to pay more, while at the same time forgetting that it is the lower income brackets who get punished by the subsequent gas price increases, since it now makes up a larger portion of their income, such as it is.
The federal and State governments make twice as much profit off every gallon of gas sold than any oil company on the planet.
Because poor people are the ones who hire people and sign their paychecks. Got it.
Slappy has never signed the front of any paycheck in his life…
“If you’ll blame Obama for stores being open on Thanksgiving, you’ll blame Obama for anything”
I wouldn’t worry about it stevie, I’m sure Obama will just pass the blame on to Bush, as usual.
I worked for Nordstrom for 12 years. Best place I ever worked…..
You’re like a remora.
Lamprey is the better image, because it fastens with its mouthparts. Remoras have the suction cup on the top of the head.
Remoras are also cuter than lampreys, so…
Christ. I’m having conversations with people that don’t even accept bullshit political definitions.
– FTFY
– And if you’re amazed by PW commwntators, then best just to sit quietly with your hands in your lap and maybe you’ll learn something, but its doubtful.
– First principles: Governement produces nothing.
– Work on that Slappy, and then you can move onto something more comples.
– Slappy is like all the other Lefties, hoping that as long as gov can get its bony fingers into any enterprise theres always a chance some Marxo-Socialist like Bumblefuck will throw some free shit their way. Thus they take every opportunity to propagandize said Utopian crackpot ideas.
And Mitt Romney’s effective tax rate is about 15%. Golly. Maybe Mitt’s taxes should go up a little and your son’s should go down. Is that really redistribution? Class warfare?
Mitt Romney’s income is from trusts and interest earnings on bonds. Just like John Kerry’s rich wife.
– So transparent, these Progressive dumbasses. So now suddenly Mittens is back in the sights of the Left morons because some poll recently showed that Bumblefuck would lose to him in a national election. Can’t have that, must resist. Must fight back. Jug ears whole legacy is at stake.
– Morons.
– Hey Slappy, eyes and ears…
– First principles:
* The least effective way to accomplish anything is through a govermental agency.
* In any gov activity or program the work load expands to fill the time allotted it, and completion of the task is not a criterea or goal.
* Whatever budget is set for a gov task, all of the budget must be spent plus 325% so that more can be asked for in the next budget. Not spending over budget is grounds for reassignment since gov workers rarely if ever get fired.
– For instance you can see all three of these principles in action by looking at the gov healthcare.gov website. It cost the taxpayer (so far) 625+ million for something you could hire Google to do fro 10 million.
– And it would work. The govs version doesn’t, plus its only 60% complete, missing the billing and other functions, so theres more cost to come, not even including the “fixes” that won’t work.
– The final cost will depend on how many buds Mooch has, and will never work properly.
– Its almost as if they patterened the site after the Post office operation. The Canadian firm they contracted has had 21 failed gov IT jobs in a row.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Jugears. He’s cool with the “nuclear option” that he voted against as an insane power grab when the republicans were in charge of the Senate.
The Constitution means what he wants it to mean.
That wheel turns, bucko.
BHH, upthread Slappy says you space cowboys can’t explain entropy.
Care to school the boy?
*BBH* fooking arthritis . . .
that he voted against as an insane power grab when the republicans were in charge of the Senate.
They took a vote? Somehow my memory differs, making me think it never came to a vote. There were plenty of speeches though, and when it comes to making empty speeches, ClownDisaster tells us he’s numero uno.
– 2nd law of govdynamics. In any gov activity, the longer the program goes on the less chance it will ever work:
“Old father private industry sets a good pace, but nanny-mother governmental chaos is winning the race.”
I would think the “early start” also has something to do with Thanksgiving being so late this year. It is probably just psychological though, the retailer think they are being robbed of shopping days. However, I doubt people spend more money just because there are a few more shopping hours added.
I was not get anything for my second cousin twice removed but, since Walmart is open. . .
I thought there had been a vote, but I’ll stand corrected since your memory is better than mine.
I know he raised hell about it as “trampling on the minority!” So, it could be that’s what I’m remembering.
– Of course I’m probably biased. I only spent 53 years in Aerospace as a contractor watching the bread and circus up close and personal.
– The only reason ANY gov program ever gets finished successfully is if some private contractor decides to do a good job in spite of gov assistance. The biggest obstacle to finishing any Aerospace job was satisfying the gov DECAS inspectors that there really was a plant where work was being done. Most of them are world class morons.
I skipped thermo, so I only have the dictionary definition to look to.
But the suggestion that none of understand entropy is even more laughable than steve’s other cartoonish notions of the readership, here.
– You have to have the intellectual accumen of a used car salesman to not break up laughing out loud at the notion that goverment can accomplish anything worthwhile, other than steal money from one group and give it to another group, and they can’t even do that efficiently.
It’s how the field of economics defines it. It’s not a “government” term.
…because if a government employee digs a ditch, or puts out a fire, or teaches a class, or launches a rocket, those things are all imaginary and don’t exist.
Or maybe the reason that increasing the minimum wage doesn’t reduce employment is because of wage compression. It’s been studied, it doesn’t increase unemployment. There’s a number of hypothesis for how that could be. You just keep putting your fingers in your ears and saying, “lalalalalalalalalala”. I get that that’s a very comfortable position for you. Pull up.
Leigh’s son paying 28% and Mitt paying 15% is also PUNISHing someone. It also means there’s a lot less people out there with disposable income creating demand. If you tax the bottom and middle of the economy and give a pass to people at the top, who’s going to buy all the stuff those businesses make? Just other rich people? I know Mitt’s a big spender, but I don’t think he’s going to buy 3000 pairs of pants or eat out 3000 times a month.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI
If you cut taxes by $100 billion, and cut spending by $600 billion to balance the books, then you’ve cut aggregate demand and laid off a few hundred thousand people, increased unemployment, and shrank the economy.
No, but if they have some disposable income, they spend money, that creates demand, and businesses hire to meet that demand.
Your eagerness to assert facts about things you do not know is not a virtue.
Yep, no roads, no bridges, no first responders, no school teachers, no military, no war victories, no fugitives caught, no passports issued, no satellites in space, no internet.
NOTHING. Or was that sarcasm that I was just too thick to pick up on, because it sounded literal when you said it.
I’m so happy to learn you’d rather have your son paying higher taxes than Mitt and JohnKerrysRichWife.
– No, the reason dolts like Steve-douche push this government bullshit is simply so they can steal with impunity.
Are you saying that the increasing rate of expansion of the universe is because of entropy? Christ on a crutch. But then every night, you and your son hold hands and pray that no one raises Mitt’s taxes, so what should I expect.
…because if a government employee digs a ditch, or puts out a fire, or teaches a class, or launches a rocket, those things are all imaginary and don’t exist.
– Government “workers” do not do any of those things. Nada. they are all done by private companies under contract. Even so-called government agencies like NASA are really just private company conglomerates that utilize government management “sharing”. So even those are not truly government workers. Nor are forest fires put out by government workers. The fire -fighters are 95% private fire fighting operations. The forestry service “oversees” forestry operations, which is “watching” not doing.
– The government produces nothing.
Advocating that my friends with higher incomes pay a little more so that strangers like you with lower incomes can pay a little less is a very strange form of stealing.
The number of “hands on” actual “jobs” done by government “workers” is not worth mentioning compared to the number of government employees. Shhh, don’t tell anyone.
Advocating that my friends with higher incomes pay a little more so that strangers like you with lower incomes can pay a little less is a very strange form of stealing.
– People with higher income already pay more, a lot more on a percentage basis, than lower income people.
– You just want to steal more of their money and look like its laudable doing it. All taxation is a conscription, and should be minimum for everyone at all times, period.
– The government has no “right” to steal your money, and even less right to steal it just to hand it to someone else, and you have even less right to even talk about it. What other people make or keep or get taxed for is none of your fucking business. Period.
You live in this odd little world without police officers, fire fighters, soldiers, teachers, FBI agents, CIA agents, astronauts, VS doctors, and on, and on, and on.
And even discounting contractors is a joke. That’s like saying Apple produces NOTHING because the manufacturing is done by contractors.
This is a great example of how you can crash, face first, into facts, and just go right back to spooning your dogma.
Christ on a crutch. But then every night, you and your son hold hands and pray that no one raises Mitt’s taxes, so what should I expect.
Listen, you POS, don’t you mock my son. Ever. The boy is a National Merit Scholar and a math prodigy.
You aren’t fit to carry his textbooks.
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/30/liberals-laud-alan-kruegers-fatally-flawed-minimum-wage-study/
“The study found that employment at the New Jersey fast food restaurants actually increased at a greater rate than those in Pennsylvania after the former increased its minimum wage. Those findings were touted far and wide by liberal politicians, including Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary Robert Reich and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), as evidence of the beneficent economic effects of a higher minimum wage.
But subsequent reviews of the study showed fatal flaws that undermined its findings. In 1996, a review of the study by the Employment Policies Institute found that the data sets Krueger and Card used were so badly flawed that “no credible conclusions can be drawn from the report.” Specifically, the study found, “the data set used in the New Jersey study bears no relation to numbers drawn from payroll records of the restaurants the New Jersey study claims to cover.”
Rather than look at those payroll records, Krueger and Card called fast food managers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania to ask about changes in employment at their restaurants. But not only did the data they obtained inaccurately reflect changes in fast food employment in the two states, according to the EPI, about a third of their data points got the direction of hiring wrong – that is, the data showed restaurants reduced employment when they actually increased it, and vice versa, during the period measured.”
http://epionline.org/studies/epi_njfastfood_04-1996.pdf
The minimum wage studies you vaguley reference are just union-agitprop bullshit steve. They are idiotic wishcasting by the dumb for the dumb and only accepted as true by the very dumb.
Cripes, but your party sucks now.
According to leigh, her son pays 28%, and according to Mitt’s tax returns, he pays 15%. So someone’s lying.
Oh shit. The thorazine’s wearing off. Pull that constitution out of your breast pocket, put on your reading glasses, and you’ll see that the government has the ability to tax. It’s not stealing, you sorry sot. Notice how fire fighters will show up if you call them? Notice how there’s a road in front of your place?
“You live in this odd little world without police officers, fire fighters, soldiers, teachers, FBI agents, CIA agents, astronauts, VS doctors, and on, and on, and on. ”
Local, sometimes private, SOLDIERS ADD VALUE? teachers are easily done privately, FBI is great just ask Richard Jewell who they tried to frame for a bombing or the Tsarnev brothers who they didn’t prevent from carrying out a bombing, astrnoauts are already going private. Of course a lot of that is because Obama gutted NASA probably because he knows how much value they must add being government astronauts and such.
And even discounting contractors is a joke. That’s like saying Apple produces NOTHING because the manufacturing is done by contractors.
– Strickly speaking if you said that you would be correct. Apple is in fact, “marketing” a product in this case, since production is done by outside manufacturing contract. The design work, at least a portion that doesn’t get contracted out to independent vendors, is done at Apple.
– Of course this is all very nice but has not a fucking thing to do with the situation with the government, where 95%+ of all “work” is actually done by outside contractors and private industry. So you’ll have to try harder than that.
– Government produces nothing and wastes piles of money doing it.
“Oh shit. The thorazine’s wearing off.”
Yah, so is the charm of your infanitle mendacity and poor reading comprehension. Here, I’ll retort with equivalently well developed wit and humor that you’ve displayed, “Whooo! You should start a crappy band called PowerClueless 5000”.
Leigh’s son paying 28% and Mitt paying 15% is also PUNISHing someone.
So instead of punishing Leigh’s son LESS, you prefer punishing everyone MORE. (What’s wrong with the government spending less? You never address this.)
No, but if they have some disposable income, they spend money, that creates demand, and businesses hire to meet that demand.
Oh, so allowing people to keep more of their money DOES create more jobs? Well, hell, why didn’t you admit that the first time? Would have saved us a lot of bother, and you a lot of embarrassment (assuming you have the emotional ability to actually BE embarrassed by your own stupidity)…
If you cut taxes by $100 billion, and cut spending by $600 billion to balance the books, then you’ve cut aggregate demand and laid off a few hundred thousand people, increased unemployment, and shrank the economy.
Not at all. You have allowed the people who actually drive the economy to keep that $600 billion they would have otherwise had to fork over to the IRS, and spend it in other ways, thus driving up the demand… well, see your last answer as to what people do when they have disposable income. More spending by consumers = more jobs all around, and all through chopping 20% off the Federal Budget. Well done!
Next lesson.
Yep, no roads, no bridges, no first responders, no school teachers, no military, no war victories, no fugitives caught, no passports issued, no satellites in space, no internet.
Teachers existed long before they were receiving government salaries. So did roads and bridges. And firemen. And no one here is suggesting that national defense isn’t a legitimate use for government. It’s one of the (very) few such uses.
No satellites in space? That’s right, let’s ignore the people who are building working spacecraft in their spare time. Space-X just won that big prize for being able to put a reusable civilian spacecraft up twice within a two-week period. NASA? “Muslim Outreach”.
And it wasn’t the government who developed the Internet, it was private universities. Letting governments get involved with the internet has resulted in nothing more than taxation schemes and censorship.
I’m so happy to learn you’d rather have your son paying higher taxes than Mitt and JohnKerrysRichWife.
So let’s lower those income taxes down to the level of investment income, right? You couldn’t possibly be suggesting that we punish those who actually create all the jobs, could you? Because that has ALWAYS AND INEVITABLY resulted in lower income for the government, and reduced jobs for those most in need of them. Every time. But like Barry Soertoro said, even though it does nothing to raise revenue, let’s punish those successful people “for the fairness”.
Are you saying that the increasing rate of expansion of the universe is because of entropy?
Those “Reading Is Fundamental” courses should start paying off for you at some point, Slappy, keep trying.
Your eagerness to assert facts about things you do not know is not a virtue.
Yet you continue doing it. Why, if you claim it isn’t a virtue? Are you being paid to spread your lies? By whom, and why isn’t that money being taxed more?
Advocating that my friends with higher incomes pay a little more so that strangers like you with lower incomes can pay a little less is a very strange form of stealing.
I like how Slappy groups all of his friends into the “higher incomes” groups, while everyone who has been busily proving him wrong is somehow in the “lower income” groups. What was that you said about asserting things you have no knowledge of? Or should we just assume that you are lying (yet again)?
And what do your friends think about you stealing from them? (Since you claimed that you were eligible for a federal health insurance subsidy, yet were also making $250k/yr, which means you are either lying, or stealing, or both.)
You don’t see any monetary value in a national defense, Dr. Douchenlittle? Why even have one then? Why we could lay off a million people, balance the budget, and even cut taxes without it. It would be Drum’s very wet, very little, dream.
“Advocating that my friends with higher incomes pay a little more so that strangers like you with lower incomes can pay a little less is a very strange form of stealing.”
More inane wishcasting. If you’ll blame Obama for lying about Obamacare then you’ll bame Obama for anything. Blaaaaar.
– The only reason you are happily repeating the Lefts bullshit narrative Steve-dolt is the government has some leeway in making laws that allow for legal theft. If they did not have that power you would be looking for some other angle to let you steal from others.
” You don’t see any monetary value in a national defense, -“”
So you think the military is profitable instead of a sunk cos or an overhead costt? Really?
You get more out of the MIC than gets put in? Really?
Shortersteve: I don’t understand the concept of added value.
– With the economic history of the government, only a total moron, or thief with an agenda, would try to make a case for government involvement in anything. You’d have a better argument trying for a flat-earth steve-dolt.
We should put everybody in the military then Steve, because the military is a sure money moneymaker. Everything they touch turns into gold! We’ll all get rich on our profit sharing, dividends, and climbing stock prices all by defending each other from each other.
You don’t see any monetary value in a national defense
Reading (r-e-a-d-i-n-g) is fundamental. Reading comprehension is key. Try it some time.
Drum specifically mentions national defense as being mentioned in the founding documents.
It’s time for this one to get lost.
In the democratic party stupid passes for clever if it helps you throw that lever.
I’m really sorry this platform doesn’t allow me to read the words to you. I said that cutting taxes grows the economy, and grows the deficit. I said it, you just didn’t understand it.
Nothing at all, so long as it’s done gradually, so that it’s effect on GDP is spread out and not an immediate shock.
Try to follow. This actually isn’t hard.
If you cut taxes by $100 billion, and cut spending by $600 billion, you haven’t actually given people $600 billion more to spend as they choose. You’ve given them discretion over $100 billion, at the same time that you made $600 billion vanish from the economy for a net economic impact of -500 BILLION.
It’s just math. Don’t hate it.
A number of you have chimed in about how poor you are. All I did was believe you.
I said I WASN’T eligible for a subsidy. Is that your trick? You read wrong and then refute it?
It would baloon the deficit, which you care greatly about in regards to spending, but seem completely ignorant of when it comes to tax rates.
“I’m really sorry this platform doesn’t allow me to read the words to you. ”
You don’t even know what most of them mean, so it hardly matters.
but seem completely ignorant of when it comes to tax rates.
Yes, you have demonstrated your ignorance about taxes many, many times.
“It would baloon the deficit,”
Oh right. Steve thinks the laffer curve is fake and the Jersey fast food studies are real.
Shorter Steve: “Higher rates means higher revenue. There is no feedback effect. Tax rate is an easy scaler. The data lies unless you cherry pick it correctly.”
I’m betting steve thinks positive feedback loops are a good thing.
The next time we revisit the tax code, all the tax credits, exceptions, and cut-outs we arranged previously to get the tax changes passed in the first place, and mitigate any unwanted feedback effects, will become sleazy, almost illegal, tax loopholes that only a cheating thieving coward would use the next time. And the people asking for their removal will have used them extensively and not want to talk about it. And yet there will be NEW credits, exceptions, and cut-outs in the new proposed tax scheme.
Because smart and justice.
People and financial entities are static economic units with deterministic fixed algorithmic range output easily predictable for each domain input . They don’t react in unforeseen ways to what might be interpreted as punishment or incentive. They are just theoretical machines with a known domain.
Also, printing money increases spending power and prices should be fixed by experts because people are too stupid to buy what they need or what they want int he right way.
That’s the redirecting, lunkhead. The economic value that fuels them, however, is taken by government from people we call taxpayers, who did the actual creating of said value.
Without the value created by these taxpayers, the government can’t do anything.
At all.
Ergo, governments do not create value. They (wait for it) redirect it to public purposes.
When they’re not redistributing it to private purposes to buy votes, that is.
I said that cutting taxes grows the economy, and grows the deficit.
Well, sure, if you keep growing spending. You say this like it’s a fact of life, yet you ignore the obvious. And that’s the bugaboo you keep avoiding. WHY SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT HAVE TO ALWAYS SPEND MORE? Why can’t the government do what EVERYBODY ELSE does, and live within its income?
You’ve given them discretion over $100 billion, at the same time that you made $600 billion vanish from the economy for a net economic impact of -500 BILLION.
It’s just math. Don’t hate it.
Wrong again, Slappy. The $600 billion you are taking from the rich to redistribute to favored political classes had to come from somewhere. In your world, you are borrowing it. Less money borrowed from those banks allows those same banks to offer that money to lend to those private individuals, who use it to grow and build things. It also reduces the borrowing pressure and eliminates most of Barry’s trillion dollar deficits. You seem to think that it merely disappears.
Tell us, Slappy, the federal budget has doubled since Clinton’s time in office. Where is that money coming from? And if the Federal Government isn’t spending any more, do you honestly think it just evaporates? Are you arguing that the money isn’t actually based on wealth, but on the whim of a bureaucrat?
Who do you pay to balance your checkbook, Slappy?
A number of you have chimed in about how poor you are. – See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=52005#comment-1035768
Yeah, I want to return to the Bush economy, too (BEFORE San Fran Nan came in and fucked up everything, that is). Too bad we’ve had Obama gutting the system. (See also “Quantitative Easing”, or “Why Portugal’s economy collapsed in the 16th century”)
Why can’t the government do what EVERYBODY ELSE does, and live within its income?
– Well then Steve-dolt and his slacker bragade would be SOL when it comes to free shit, thats why.
“because if a government employee digs a ditch, or puts out a fire, or teaches a class, or launches a rocket, those things are all imaginary and don’t exist.”
If the ditch has no value then digging it is a waste. There is an opportunity cost to digging useless ditches in that the money could have been spent on something valuable and sold at a profit to someone who wanted it.
Putting out a fire mitigates harm. It’s a cost. It’s money you won’t get back and that won’t grow. We don’t put out fires as an economic activity though Halliburton has specialized ways of putting out certain fires that MIGHT be valuable enough to make a profit on.
Teaching a class might only have value as entertainment which again, is a form of cost. All classes are not created equal. A class in a failed economic theory might be harmful to students who believe what they were taught. Credentials are not knowledge and skills.
Machines can launch rockets now. That’s largely been automated if the rocket is simple enough. It’s work Americans wouldn’t do I guess. And again a destructive rocket does not add value unless you are selling it to someone at a profit(which is evil). A probe may add to knowledge but it might not be valuable knowledge. (Oh. That planet has three rings and more moons than we thought. Yay. ) A communications satellite might be very valuable.
I’d like to see some investigative reporting about how all these Senators and Congresscritters become filthy rich when in office.
That could be some riveting reading. Maybe even a television movie.
Palaeo, hey now. You’re using that business lingo again: sunk costs and ROI. It’s like Mandarin to some people.
– The Left wants gov to hold all the money and power so they can get guaranteed outcomes. They want to sell their freedoms for comforts at someone elses expense because they have no value in freedoms. In their own words “freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose”.
– They usually can’t lose anything because they don’t have shit. People like Steve-dolt never have any skin in the game, just sit on the outside and hector and bloviate for “more”.
Yeah. 101 mandarin.
Yup. He probably still thinks Keynes was on to something. Rather than on something.
– Government produces nothing. (That should be engraveded on our money.)
Not only that, BBH, government gets in the way of progress.
“It’s time to change the Senate, before this institution becomes obsolete,” Reid said today, after the fillibuster limiting vote was passed.
– For once I agree with you on something dirty Harry (speaking of millionaires on a senators income). I think we’ll change the Senate in 2014, hows that grab yah?
“I’d like to see some investigative reporting about how all these Senators and Congresscritters become filthy rich when in office. -”
Here you go Leigh.
http://www.thewire.com/national/2011/11/how-members-congress-get-rich-through-honest-graft/44928/
– More evidence that the State of Oregon has lost its collectivistic mind.
? ????????? ??? ??????? ??????.
Gubernatione nihil producit.
Die Regierung bringt nichts.
I can’t recall the exact catchy way of saying this but, wealth only comes from two sources: the forests* or the fields**. Everything else is just pushing or attracting wealth.
Some people add “factories” accounting for the human labor resource and skill adding value which is probably true but, it is still dependent on the other two and besides, the money needed to buy factory goods come from the other two sources.
Something like entertainment does not generate wealth, it attracts it whether you are a street musician or Michael Bay.
*”forests” are anything from “the wild” like hunting, fishing, mining, forestry etc.
**”fields” are farms and ranches
Here you go Leigh
Thanks!
According to leigh, her son pays 28%, and according to Mitt’s tax returns, he pays 15%. So someone’s lying
Remember that math you find so hard?
Here’s a tough one…
Who pays more in taxes, the man who is taxed at a rate of 15% on his $10 million income, or someone taxed at 28% of the $10,000? Which is more, $1.5 million or $2,800? Which man pays more?
C’mon, Slappy, who pays more, the guy paying $1.5 million or the kid paying $2,800? Not whether or not you think he deserves to make that much, but what is the bottom line? Not to mention how many other people who got jobs (and paid their taxes) because of the investment income put into play, mind, just the raw numbers….
That isn’t true now; hasn’t been true for a few years and likely won’t be true again for a few more years.
It’s not just that, Drum. It’s that investment income is taxed more than once, when it is invested and then when dividends are paid. Also, penalties for early withdrawals of investment funds are costly.
Municipal bonds (where much of Teresa Kerry’s and Warren Buffet’s monies are) benefit the community and pay dividends to the buyer. They are a safe “old money” investment at a level that most people don’t manage to achieve in their working lives.
It’s the same theft that occurs with inheritance taxes. It was taxed when it was earned, when it was churned and now when it is willed to one’s heirs.
I believe the idea is to encourage investment not to mention that this investment wealth has already been taxed as corporate or personal income.
Yes. There is a disincentive for average joes to save, as well. Many savings accounts charge a service fee of 7-10 dollars a month. If you are trying to save a modest amount, say $100 a month, they are taking 10% to send you a statement. Your account can sit idle and be devoured by fees, too.
Money market accounts? Feh. 2% returns? No thank you.
I recall reading years ago in Mother Jones a “debunking” of the idea that the military industrial complex helped the economy. It of course was written as an anti-military piece.
I believe the author’s argument would work for most govt “services” but, I doubt he/she would have applied it to those today.
Strictly speaking, national defense spending is one of those public purposes toward which the federal government is constitutionally empowered to redirect some of the gross domestic product. Its benefit to the economy is, like other taxpayer-funded public purposes, indirect and therefore not a creation of wealth.
But like other taxpayer-funded public purposes, it helps make wealth creation possible.
Wealth redistribution is simply theft under color of law. Once upon a time a liberal could be counted on to decry such transfers to recipients like Too Big To Fail, Inc., but Obama is historic in a great many ways.
righty-o mr. mcGehee, call it overhead.
The AMARG at Tucson claims it generates dollars — actually makes a profit — selling spare aircraft and parts. They may even claim they’re the only arm of government to do so.
Generating dollars is not the same thing as generating wealth — the production of those parts, however…
[…] Random Everywhere: – Pilot lands a jumbo on a little runway at the wrong airport. Skillz. – Life in a galaxy far, far away. – NorK’s nab an 85 year old tourist. – So that’s what they do during their breaks. – Classy. […]
Did I misread something, or did the noisy one really try to justify that $600 billion taken away from the Beltway would be $600 billion lost to the economy? Does he not believe that the banks and investors financing that $600 billion wouldn’t find something else to do with their money? Something that would likely have a much more positive economic impact?
Are we really to believe that allowing millions of people to keep their money and spend it on the things they think are important to their families is a far worse course than forcibly taking their money to spend it on stuff that Beltway lobbyists think is important?
Good grief, but this boy is thick. Do Oregon schools teach anything besides the racism inherent in sandwiches?
Also, note that government spending cuts need to be gradual. Never mind that noisy’s people are perfectly happy to blow a trillion dollars at a time on shit like TARP and O-Care.
It’s like trying to argue with a cat.
He’s been taught lots of leftist “just-so” stories and fuck all about the jungle, history, economics, politics, or mankind. He’s walked on a road of bizarre ad hoc fallacy his whole life and so takes it for metaphysical truth. The lens bends the light into smooth, simple cartoonish shapes before it even reaches his eyes, or so his brain has been trained to tell him.
“Also, note that government spending cuts need to be gradual. ”
Yah, the need to be cut so gradually that maintain positive slope and keep rising and CBO says they’ll turn into a zero deficit in ten years, (if we have 8% growth until then and take no account of additional debt or altered credit terms).
It’s amazing what the CBO can prove if they only start with the right ridiculous set of figures and anticipate an unnaturally non dynamic homeostatic environment for very long periods of time and don’t anticipate any policy changes in political successors.
But that reliance on a CBO with it’s hands tied regarding assumptions and no consequences for being absurdly and obviously wrong is all the cartoon facade a leftist needs to paint over the looming danger.
And when republicans are in charge the CBO loses its magic and becomes corrupt and terminally fucked. In such times we should look to lefty lobbying firms, think tanks, celebrity faux journalistic essay-idiots like Toure, DJs, stand up comedians, or washed up singers who haunt twitter like Cher for sane council.
It’s even more interesting when you realize that someone making what Steve claims to be making will pay almost enough in Federal income taxes to pay for a single O-3’s salary.
And nothing else.
If Stevo’s part of the 1%, that puts him as one of the ~3,300,000 top earners in the US. (Which is 1% of the population versus 1% of the households.)
When you start adding up the salaries of the rest of the FedGov personnel (all 2,820,000 odd of them, which does not count the 1,583,000 odd uniformed military), you wonder how much is left for other shit.
Drum, did you read those studies about past increases to the minimum wage having negligible impact on employment? Because you keep talking like you’re unaware of them.
Which studies are those? I do know that a rising minimum wage keeps young people out of the labor market. It also limits the number of job openings an employer might otherwise create.
That study?
How many jobs would big cuts to the federal government create?
Thousands. Especially if those cuts were privatizing inefficient government programs.
Wealth creation is an interesting phenomenon. It is the pivot on which the whole system turns.
– See more at: https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=52005#comments
The AMARG at Tucson claims it generates dollars — actually makes a profit — selling spare aircraft and parts.
That’s kind of like Goodwill claiming that it makes a profit from selling all those clothes and furniture. It doesn’t take into account what those original items cost at point of sale, nor that they were given those items for free from the people who paid top dollar for them and have no further need of them.
The profits made do not equal that original cost, even if the store itself might have a positive cash flow.