They donating billions of dollars of their money to their own (and each other's) charitable foundations.
If they believed in Government, they'd simply stop arranging their affairs--including their donations to charity and especially donations to charities they control--so as to avoid and minimizes taxes paid.
In giving to their foundations, they are bypassing potential estate taxes later. The Government could have used that money.
In giving to their foundations, they are offsetting current income taxes with deductions for their giving. The Government could have used that money. At one point Warren Buffett had $30B of carry-over charitable donations. He will be using that to offset his income taxes for the rest of his life.
In giving to their foundations, they are donating appreciated stock. That is, they are giving away stock that was given to, paid to, and/or bought by them long ago at pennies on the dollar relative to current stock prices. I've no idea about the actual values, but for sake of illustration, let's say thatg 20 years ago Bill Gates was granted options for 1M shared of Microsoft at $1/share, now valued at $100/share (didn't check, don't care it just for illustration purposes). In stock option payments, he would have paid income taxes on the difference between the option price ($1) and the market price at exercise, say $2. So in effect he was given $2M in stock, for which he paid $1M, so there's a tax liability on the $1M difference. So he paid that and holds the stock to today and it's worth $100M (in my illustration, ignoring possible splits, etc.). If he sold that stock to fund his foundation, he'd have to pay capital gains taxes on $98M in gains. But if he gives the appreciated shares to his foundation, he saves taxes three ways. First, he doesn't pay the CG taxes. Second, he claims a deduction for the full $100M of giving. Finally, that $100M is no longer in his estate, and he's therefore bypassed estate taxes.
If Mr Buffett and Mr Gates believed in the effectiveness of government over the effectiveness of private charities, they'd stop doing these things and let the government get their full tax cut. Instead, both of these men work feverishly in their avoidance of taxes (perfectly legal avoidance). Further they do so completely ignoring the irony of their simultaneous cries for higher taxes.
On the civilian side, offhand, thousands of engineers, computer programmers, project managers, administrators, machinists, assembly-line. Pretty much all the workers employed on or supporting military contracts at companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, L-3, BAE, ITT,... and all their subcontractors working on those programs. And any of those that require security clearances are 100% not going to be ousted for H1B workers or have their jobs shipped to China.
And on the military side, more than a million people are employed, physically conditioned, trained in their jobs, receive additional education and healthcare. In FY 2016, total Army end strength was 483K, the Navy had 329K, Marines 183K, Air Force 313K, and Coast Guard 39K. Currently about 9800 troops are deployed in Afghanistan and about 6000 in Iraq, about 700 in Syria. A large percentage are in the US, training etc., most of the rest are deployed at sea or in places like South Korea, Germany, Poland, Japan.
America’s biggest — and only major — jobs program is the U.S. military.
Over 1,400,000 Americans are now on active duty; another 833,000 are in the reserves, many full time. Another 1,600,000 Americans work in companies that supply the military with everything from weapons to utensils. (I’m not even including all the foreign contractors employing non-US citizens.)
If we didn’t have this giant military jobs program, the U.S. unemployment rate would be over 11.5 percent today instead of 9.5 percent.
And without our military jobs program personal incomes would be dropping faster. The Commerce Department reported Monday the only major metro areas where both net earnings and personal incomes rose last year were San Antonio, Texas, Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. — because all three have high concentrations of military and federal jobs.
This isn’t an argument for more military spending. Just the opposite. Having a giant undercover military jobs program is an insane way to keep Americans employed.
Historically some of America’s biggest jobs programs that were critical to the nation’s future have been justified by national defense, although they’ve borne almost no relation to it. The National Defense Education Act of the late 1950s trained a generation of math and science teachers. The National Defense Highway Act created millions of construction jobs turning the nation’s two-lane highways into four- and six-lane Interstates.
Of the $5.302T they claim for 2015, $333B was pre-tax subsidies. Here pre-tax subsidies mean when consumers pay a price lower than the cost to produce; these are by-gosh real subsidies, like Saudi Arabia charging citizens 60-cents per gallon and eating the difference. They lump producer and consumer subsidies together, but a footnote says "Producer subsides as estimated by the OECD are realtively small, at $16.8 billion in 2011 and $17.9 billion in 2015."
The largest portion of the $5T+ is in "post-tax subsidies", which here are the externalities:
* Global warming
They figured global warming costs at $1.268T * Local pollution
They figured local pollution at $2.734T
I'm not at all clear as to how these would not also apply to a worldwide fleet of 100% emission-free EVs, charged by 100% emission free power (solar, wind, hydro plants).
* Foregone consumption tax revenue $313B
Some countries, like the US, do not have a national consumption tax and some have a consumption tax, but energy is discounted or excluded. If the whole world had consumption taxes AND if energy was included in those taxes...we'd have garnered that figure, apparently. Of course, the US would not be taxing the consumption of electricity made by Mr. Musks solar plant, either, so those was also represent "foregone consumption tax revenue".
Number of Tax Units (roughly, households excluding those that are dependents of other tax units) 173.4M
Tax Units with Zero or Negative Individual Income Tax (Calculated as: all non-filers plus filers with federal individual income tax of less than $5) 76.9M, or 44.3%
44+% is in the same ballpark as "almost half".
But then there's always "But they pay payroll taxes!!!! What about payroll taxes!!!!"
Looking at that we find
Tax Units with Zero or Negative Sum of Income and Payroll Taxes (Calculated as: non-filers with less than $5 in payroll taxes plus filers with combined federal income and payroll taxes of less than $5) 46.4M, or 26.8%
This calculation recognizes that items like the EITC can more than offset income taxes AND payroll taxes and provide negative taxes when the two are summed.
So more than 44% pay no federal income taxes, and more than one-quarter of the population (again, this excludes those who are dependents) are actually not paying net positive the federal taxes, except perhaps the odd excise tax (e.g., 18.1 cents per gallon gas tax). And this of course excludes any non-tax benefits, such as SS benefits, foodstamps and Section 8 housing vouchers.
For better or worse, and reasons aside, these are the numbers.
If the tax breaks and deductions are available to any and all businesses, then they are not "Oil Subsidies".
According to a Greenpeace list, US Govt. "subsidies" to Big Oil includes several categories, some of which might reasonably be considered "subsidies" but are in fact not for Big Oil specifically. Rather they are tax code elements that are available for any business, primarily in the realm of accelerated depreciation of capital assets. There are also loan guarantee and construction bond programs; again, these are available for all industry, not just Big Oil. Perhaps Big Oil utilizes these tax code items more frequently than other industries, but that does not make these "Big Oil subsidies".
The biggest "subsidy" on their list is in fact not a subsidy at all. Some years ago, the Government leased oil fields and agreed on a per barrel royalty structure. When oil was $30/BB, the royalties seemed reasonable to all parties, so the contracts were signed. In some cases, the Government failed to stipulate any royalties at all! Now, though, those royalties are a pittance and the Government wishes it had structured the royalties differently. The difference between what they are making and what they *wished* they were making is often included in the calculations of "Big Oil subsidies". Congress has moved in the past to try to retroactively modify the contracts and demanded that the oil companies accept new leases.
Greenpeace also includes several intangibles in their "Big Oil subsidies" list. Things such as
* Giving money to international financial institutions
* The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve
* Construction and protection of the nation's highway system (if we had 100% EV fleet, wouldn't this be a Big Solar subsidy?)
* Allowing the industry to pollute
Keep the nature of these fake "subsidies" in mind when discussing the issue. The "Green" industry partakes of several of these same subsidies: Modified Accelerated Cost-Recovery System (MACRS), R&D credits, etc., but also receive direct no-doubt-about-it subsides. Like ethanol's $0.50/gallon production subsidy (when it was in effect) not to mention ag subsidies used to prop up the growing of the corn that goes into ethanol, billions of dollars every year going into the pockets of Big Ag, or EV $7500/car subsidy, solar subsides over the years.
Actually, I am unaware of any women currently on any NBA rosters. Ignoring the small different in men vs women in the population, about half of random people will have 100% likelihood of not being on an NBA team, and about half have a 99.999% likelihood of not being on an NBA team. Those probabilities may still add up to the same thing, but practically, if I meet a random woman black or white, I still can be absolutely certain she is not on an NBA roster.
Saw a TV ad once for a medical show about a man born without a penis getting a "bionic" one. But the blurb said "Andrew is the only person in Britain born without a penis due to a 1 in 20-million condition". I was forced to infer that women in Britain are born with penises.
That, or that people insist on using gender-neutral pronouns even when doing so leads to silliness. Similarly, sportscasters have a checker history of referring to important "firsts" by "African-Americans" except that they sometimes aren't African-American at all...they may be actual Africans from African countries, or may be dark-skinned people born in Britain or elsewhere in Europe ("European-Africans"?).
What does Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton have in common with former heavyweight champ Lennox Lewis? They're both famous athletes named "Lewis," of course, but they also have the distinction of being two of the most recognizable African-Britons on the planet. What, you've never heard the term African-Briton before? Perhaps you, like certain media outlets we know, need to learn how to use the term "black."
Here's ESPN's correction after Hamilton won last weekend's Canadian Grand Prix: "On a June 11 Mike and Mike in the Morning news update on ESPN2, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, the first black person to win an F-1 race, was termed an African American. He is from England."
Here's how the Charlotte Observer expressed regret: "A story in Monday's Sports section misidentified Lewis Hamilton as Formula One's first African American driver. It should have said he is the series' first black driver. Hamilton is British."
Lennox Lewis was also regularly mislabeled, usually by columnists discussing the "African American" dominance of the heavyweight division.
Of course, it's not only athletes who have to deal with this strange combination of political correctness and geographic ignorance from American writers. Brits Naomi Campbell and Thandie Newton have both been referred to as African Americans. (Newton at least has the African part down, as she was born in Zambia.)
Maybe as punishment, the journalists should be forced to listen to a lecture on the differences between African-Americans and black people by Gary Sheffield.
Is the racial bias in the algorithms--which are impinged by race only as 2nd, 3rd... order effects as race was specifically not first-order data--more or less likely to make these errors than human parole boards using their education, training, "gut" and personal biases?
Does a financial AI that uses applicants' Zip Code but specifically does not include race as a factor in deciding who gets loans do a more or less biased job than human bank VP?
Sometimes reality is disproportionate and must be accounted for. "According to racial equality activist Richard Lapchick, the NBA in 2015 was composed of 74.4 percent black players, 23.3 percent white players, 1.8 percent Latino players, and 0.2 percent Asian players." In US population, whites are about 76%, blacks about 13%, Latinos are about 17%, and Asians are about 5%. Are we going to insist that NBA teams scout and draft their teams to prevent racial bias from producing such disproportionate rosters? Maybe we need government-funded programs designed to produce more white basketball players so that they can naturally take their rightful place on a racially proportional NBA roster?
"Obviously at the extreme of a $10k / minute minimum wage, nobody would hire anybody (unless hyperinflation happened), so there are limits. But if you're unconvinced of the possibility, I invite you to also consider something less politically fraught: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. Paradoxically, one can sometimes improve traffic by removing roads, and make traffic worse by adding roads. There are classes of problem for which the optimal form of the "Invisible Hand" gives suboptimal results. Optimizing the economy by optimizing each employment contract is a greedy algorithm, which is not always going to be globally optimal."
You know you've just made the Laffer Curve argument, right?
The Laffer curve assumes that $0 is the revenue raised at the extreme tax rates of 0% and 100%, and that at some point between 0% and 100% there must be a rate between that maximizes government taxation revenue. The actual shape of the curve is uncertain, and there is always a question about whether tax rate of X is to the left or right of the maximal rate. (Note esp. that the Laffer curve doesn't say "reducing tax rates increases revenue"...but that may indeed be the case if the previous rates were on the wrong side of the maximizing rate).
Nevertheless, one implication of the Laffer curve is that increasing tax rates beyond a certain point is counter-productive for raising further tax revenue, and conversely that at some levels, decreasing rates may actually improve revenues. Certainly the same logic applies to wages, in that a minimum wage of 10k/minute means no one gets hired and $0.01/week means some people might be taken advantage of. But it is impossible to know that a minimum wage of X is the "best" wage.
On the other hand, government is not necessarily trying to maximize revenue with taxes, sometimes government is just trying to punish some behaviors and reward others based on what is in favor or disfavor at the time. One might say the same thing about minimum wages, in that governments are not actually interested in helping workers so much as they are happy to punish businesses, or at least be seen as "doing something" even if it has negative consequences.
Environmental Progress is almost certainly not affiliated with Koch brothers or big oil.
Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine "Hero of the Environment" and Green Book Award-winning author and policy expert. For a quarter-century he has advocated solutions to lift all people out of poverty while protecting the natural environment.
Michael is coauthor of visionary books and essays including "The Death of Environmentalism," Break Through, An Ecomodernist Manifesto, "Evolve," and Love Your Monsters. He writes for publications including Scientific American, The New York Times, and the Washington Post.
His research, writings and talks challenge the idea that rising energy consumption is bad for the environment. Michael has made the intertwined moral and scientific case for energy and environmental justice in "An Ecomodernist Manifesto," written with 17 other leading scholars and scientists, in "Why Energy Transitions are the Key to Environmental Progress," coauthored with Rachel Pritzker, and a TEDx talk, "How Humans Save Nature."
Michael is a leading pro-nuclear environmentalist. Michael was featured in "Pandora's Promise," an award-winning film about environmentalists who changed their minds about nuclear. He appeared on "The Colbert Report," and has debated nuclear on CNN "Crossfire" with Ralph Nader, and at UCLA with Mark Jacobsen. His 2016 TED talk is on "How Fear of Nuclear Hurts the Environment."
Michael's 2007 book with Ted Nordhaus, Break Through, was called "prescient" by Time and "the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring" by Wired. Michael is co-founder and Senior Fellow at Breakthrough Institute where he was president from 2003 - 2015 and advisor to MIT's "Future of Nuclear Energy" task force.
Michael has been profiled in the New York Times, Wired, the San Francisco Chronicle, the National Review, The New Republic, and on NPR. His research and writing have appeared in The Harvard Law and Policy Review, Democracy Journal, the PLOS Biology, The New Republic the Wall Street Journal; and cited by the New York Times, Slate, USA Today, Washington Post, New York Daily News, The New Republic.
Michael has been an environmental and social justice advocate for over 25 years. In the 1990s Michael helped save an old-growth redwood forest, and helped force Nike to improve factory conditions in Asia. In the 2000s, Michael advocated for and helped realize an expansion of federal investment in renewables and energy efficiency.
The two authors from Environmental Progress of the article cited from the OP's National Review article:
Mark Nelson, Senior Analyst Mark Nelson, Senior Analyst, oversees EP's ground-breaking Energy Progress Tracker, the most comprehensive review of nuclear power plants planned, under construction, and at-risk of premature closure.
Mark's research into the environmental impacts of nuclear closures in Germany and California has been cited in the New York Times and other publications.
Mark completed his graduate work in nuclear engineering at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Tony Roulstone, and studied aerospace and mechanical engineering at Oklahoma State University. Mark is a competitive runner, musician and photographer.
Jemin Desai, EP Fellow
Jemin Desai is a student studying electrical engineering and computer sciences, and nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley where he is a staff member for the introductory computer science course. He will receive both B.S. degrees in 2020. He was born in Mumbai, India, and raised in Singapore, Vancouver, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
"We're talking about the FCC, so how about sticking to the USA? I have no idea what the laws are regarding ISPs in Kenya or Zambizia or wherever, but I do know about the USA. There are no ISPs with government granted monopolies."
Local governments, e.g. county or city, provide monopolistic franchise agreements with cable and internet providers. Gas and electric are usually covered by state Public Services Commission and are provided effective natural monopolies.
"Before building out new networks, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must negotiate with local governments for access to publicly owned “rights of way” so they can place their wires above and below both public and private property. ISPs also need “pole attachment” contracts with public utilities so they can rent space on utility poles for above-ground wires, or in ducts and conduits for wires laid underground.
"Throughout most of cable's history, it's been regulated at the local level. Counties and cities were the agencies responsible for allowing cable franchises. That is changing, slightly. More than 20 states now have franchise authority, due largely to intensive lobbying by telcos like Verizon and AT&T. You know you're fucked when you're relying on AT&T to make things better. Ultimately, this patchwork of local regulation means cable companies themselves are often more powerful than the body overseeing them. And as long as none of the micro-monopolies grows too large nationally, it can continue to control the local weather.
75% of people only have one provider choice because of government grants of monopoly status.
How about some other options?
* ISPs cannot be content providers or affiliated with content providers--they can be a data pipe or a content provider but never both * In areas where local government has granted access rights to only one provider, use PSC model to mandate that that provider must provide access to other providers for the backbone to the pole (e.g., the gas line to my house was built by one company, but I can chose to get my gas from any provider in the market via the same pipe) * Local government could build the pipes and lease them to all providers at the same rates--we can't have 100 companies digging up roads to bury cable or pipes, whether it be for electricity, gas, water, sewer, cable/fiber for TV/internet, but a coordinated infrastructure contracted by local government that does all of the above and then leases non-exclusive access to providers makes a lot of sense
Trump largely could have avoided much of this by simply instructing SecState and/or AG to refrain from issuing waivers to 1182 and strictly enforcing same.
E.g. how many Syrians could produce proper paperwork for "documentation of having received vaccination against vaccine-preventable diseases, which shall include at least the following diseases: mumps, measles, rubella, polio, tetanus and diphtheria toxoids, pertussis, influenza type B and hepatitis B, and any other vaccinations against vaccine-preventable diseases recommended by the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices"
Or
(A) In general Any alien who a consular officer or the Attorney General knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, seeks to enter the United States to engage solely, principally, or incidentally in— (i) any activity (I) to violate any law of the United States relating to espionage or sabotage or (II) to violate or evade any law prohibiting the export from the United States of goods, technology, or sensitive information, (ii) any other unlawful activity, or (iii) any activity a purpose of which is the opposition to, or the control or overthrow of, the Government of the United States by force, violence, or other unlawful means, is inadmissible. (B) Terrorist activities (i) In generalAny alien who— (I) has engaged in a terrorist activity; (II) a consular officer, the Attorney General, or the Secretary of Homeland Security knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, is engaged in or is likely to engage after entry in any terrorist activity (as defined in clause (iv)); (III) has, under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily harm, incited terrorist activity; (IV) is a representative (as defined in clause (v)) of— (aa) a terrorist organization (as defined in clause (vi)); or (bb) a political, social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity; (V) is a member of a terrorist organization described in subclause (I) or (II) of clause (vi); (VI) is a member of a terrorist organization described in clause (vi)(III), unless the alien can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the alien did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the organization was a terrorist organization; (VII) endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization; (VIII) has received military-type training (as defined in section 2339D(c)(1) of title 18) from or on behalf of any organization that, at the time the training was received, was a terrorist organization (as defined in clause (vi)); or (IX) is the spouse or child of an alien who is inadmissible under this subparagraph, if the activity causing the alien to be found inadmissible occurred within the last 5 years,
is inadmissible. An alien who is an officer, official, representative, or spokesman of the Palestine Liberation Organization is considered, for purposes of this chapter, to be engaged in a terrorist activity.
Or
Foreign policy (i) In general An alien whose entry or proposed activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is inadmissible
Or
Immigrant membership in totalitarian party (i) In general Any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate thereof), domestic or foreign, is inadmissible.
Or
Public charge (A) In general Any alien who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, or in the opinion of the Attorney General at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.
You'd think, except the original injunction specifically prohibited the administration from even trying to develop said rules and procedures. That part of the injunction was only lifted on June 19th.
The original injunction specifically prevented the government from performing the actions referenced. It was only on Jun 12th that the 9th Circuit overrode that part of the injunction, and only Jun 19th that that part of the injunction was actually lifted. So the 90-day or 120-day clock was not ticking at all until then. If they had been doing that work anyway, they'd have been in contempt of court.
Original injunction actually prevented this from being done...
CNN:
"However, the 9th Circuit concluded that US District Court Judge Derrick Watson's decision was overbroad in certain limited respects, and reversed the portions of Watson's ruling that barred the administration from conducting internal reviews of other countries' vetting procedures -- a move Secretary John Kelly called a "big win" last week in an interview with CNN's Tal Kopan.
This part of the ruling "was not narrowly tailored to addressing only the harms alleged," the 9th Circuit panel explained. "For example, internal determinations regarding the necessary information for visa application adjudications do not have an obvious relationship to the constitutional rights at stake or statutory conflicts at issue here. Plaintiffs have not shown how the government's internal review of its vetting procedures will harm them."
Normally, the 9th Circuit's decision would sit for 52 days while the parties tie up loose ends, but last week the Justice Department asked the court for a speedy mandate to make its decision from June 12 take effect immediately -- a request the court granted Monday, thereby specifically allowing the vetting portions of the executive order to proceed now.
The earlier injunctions prevent the Government from even doing this research phase. That was only removed June 12th, so they've only had a small number of days to work on that.
"While the most controversial provisions of the President's revised ban blocking travel to the US remain tied up in the courts, a federal appeals court formally cleared the way late Monday for different portions of the executive order to move forward. The Trump administration can now conduct internal reviews of other countries' vetting procedures for visa applicants while the broader case is on review in the US Supreme Court."
How can it be a Muslim ban? If anything, it is a ban on people from certain countries believed to include large number of Islamists (which is to say, people who pretend to be Muslim as justification for their murderous ways). One billion Muslims not from those countries are not affected.
Slashdot Mirror
Typing error. Buffett's charitable carryover was $10B, not $30B.
They donating billions of dollars of their money to their own (and each other's) charitable foundations.
If they believed in Government, they'd simply stop arranging their affairs--including their donations to charity and especially donations to charities they control--so as to avoid and minimizes taxes paid.
In giving to their foundations, they are bypassing potential estate taxes later. The Government could have used that money.
In giving to their foundations, they are offsetting current income taxes with deductions for their giving. The Government could have used that money. At one point Warren Buffett had $30B of carry-over charitable donations. He will be using that to offset his income taxes for the rest of his life.
In giving to their foundations, they are donating appreciated stock. That is, they are giving away stock that was given to, paid to, and/or bought by them long ago at pennies on the dollar relative to current stock prices. I've no idea about the actual values, but for sake of illustration, let's say thatg 20 years ago Bill Gates was granted options for 1M shared of Microsoft at $1/share, now valued at $100/share (didn't check, don't care it just for illustration purposes). In stock option payments, he would have paid income taxes on the difference between the option price ($1) and the market price at exercise, say $2. So in effect he was given $2M in stock, for which he paid $1M, so there's a tax liability on the $1M difference. So he paid that and holds the stock to today and it's worth $100M (in my illustration, ignoring possible splits, etc.). If he sold that stock to fund his foundation, he'd have to pay capital gains taxes on $98M in gains. But if he gives the appreciated shares to his foundation, he saves taxes three ways. First, he doesn't pay the CG taxes. Second, he claims a deduction for the full $100M of giving. Finally, that $100M is no longer in his estate, and he's therefore bypassed estate taxes.
If Mr Buffett and Mr Gates believed in the effectiveness of government over the effectiveness of private charities, they'd stop doing these things and let the government get their full tax cut. Instead, both of these men work feverishly in their avoidance of taxes (perfectly legal avoidance). Further they do so completely ignoring the irony of their simultaneous cries for higher taxes.
So why aren't you? No one has chained you to a desk at a defense contractor, have they?
On the civilian side, offhand, thousands of engineers, computer programmers, project managers, administrators, machinists, assembly-line. Pretty much all the workers employed on or supporting military contracts at companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, L-3, BAE, ITT, ... and all their subcontractors working on those programs. And any of those that require security clearances are 100% not going to be ousted for H1B workers or have their jobs shipped to China.
And on the military side, more than a million people are employed, physically conditioned, trained in their jobs, receive additional education and healthcare. In FY 2016, total Army end strength was 483K, the Navy had 329K, Marines 183K, Air Force 313K, and Coast Guard 39K. Currently about 9800 troops are deployed in Afghanistan and about 6000 in Iraq, about 700 in Syria. A large percentage are in the US, training etc., most of the rest are deployed at sea or in places like South Korea, Germany, Poland, Japan.
Some years old, but makes the point: https://www.csmonitor.com/Busi...
America’s biggest — and only major — jobs program is the U.S. military.
Over 1,400,000 Americans are now on active duty; another 833,000 are in the reserves, many full time. Another 1,600,000 Americans work in companies that supply the military with everything from weapons to utensils. (I’m not even including all the foreign contractors employing non-US citizens.)
If we didn’t have this giant military jobs program, the U.S. unemployment rate would be over 11.5 percent today instead of 9.5 percent.
And without our military jobs program personal incomes would be dropping faster. The Commerce Department reported Monday the only major metro areas where both net earnings and personal incomes rose last year were San Antonio, Texas, Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. — because all three have high concentrations of military and federal jobs.
This isn’t an argument for more military spending. Just the opposite. Having a giant undercover military jobs program is an insane way to keep Americans employed.
Historically some of America’s biggest jobs programs that were critical to the nation’s future have been justified by national defense, although they’ve borne almost no relation to it. The National Defense Education Act of the late 1950s trained a generation of math and science teachers. The National Defense Highway Act created millions of construction jobs turning the nation’s two-lane highways into four- and six-lane Interstates.
Of the $5.302T they claim for 2015, $333B was pre-tax subsidies. Here pre-tax subsidies mean when consumers pay a price lower than the cost to produce; these are by-gosh real subsidies, like Saudi Arabia charging citizens 60-cents per gallon and eating the difference. They lump producer and consumer subsidies together, but a footnote says "Producer subsides as estimated by the OECD are realtively small, at $16.8 billion in 2011 and $17.9 billion in 2015."
The largest portion of the $5T+ is in "post-tax subsidies", which here are the externalities:
* Global warming
They figured global warming costs at $1.268T
* Local pollution
They figured local pollution at $2.734T
* Congestion $359B
* Accidents $271B
* Road damage $24B
I'm not at all clear as to how these would not also apply to a worldwide fleet of 100% emission-free EVs, charged by 100% emission free power (solar, wind, hydro plants).
* Foregone consumption tax revenue $313B
Some countries, like the US, do not have a national consumption tax and some have a consumption tax, but energy is discounted or excluded. If the whole world had consumption taxes AND if energy was included in those taxes...we'd have garnered that figure, apparently. Of course, the US would not be taxing the consumption of electricity made by Mr. Musks solar plant, either, so those was also represent "foregone consumption tax revenue".
You'd think that Democrats in Congress would have had the smarts and the guts to keep that idiot Bush from starting a war in Iraq...
Oops, 58% of Democratic senators (29 of 50) voted for the resolution. Those voting for the resolution were:
Baucus (D-MT), Bayh (D-IN), Biden (D-DE), Breaux (D-LA), Cantwell (D-WA), Carnahan (D-MO), Carper (D-DE), Cleland (D-GA), Clinton (D-NY), Daschle (D-SD), Dodd (D-CT), Dorgan (D-ND), Edwards (D-NC), Feinstein (D-CA), Harkin (D-IA), Hollings (D-SC), Johnson (D-SD), Kerry (D-MA), Kohl (D-WI), Landrieu (D-LA), Lieberman (D-CT), Lincoln (D-AR), Miller (D-GA), Nelson (D-FL), Nelson (D-NE), Reid (D-NV), Rockefeller (D-WV), Schumer (D-NY), Torricelli (D-NJ)
39% of Democrats in the House voted for it, too.
And you think the military is not a stimulus program?
How about from the left-leaning Tax Policy Foundation (a part of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution)? And they get theirs from the IRS.
Usually when the "almost half" number is tossed about, it means not paying net positive federal income taxes:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org...
Number of Tax Units (roughly, households excluding those that are dependents of other tax units)
173.4M
Tax Units with Zero or Negative Individual Income Tax
(Calculated as: all non-filers plus filers with federal individual income tax of less than $5)
76.9M, or 44.3%
44+% is in the same ballpark as "almost half".
But then there's always "But they pay payroll taxes!!!! What about payroll taxes!!!!"
Looking at that we find
Tax Units with Zero or Negative Sum of Income and Payroll Taxes
(Calculated as: non-filers with less than $5 in payroll taxes plus filers with combined federal income and payroll taxes of less than $5)
46.4M, or 26.8%
This calculation recognizes that items like the EITC can more than offset income taxes AND payroll taxes and provide negative taxes when the two are summed.
So more than 44% pay no federal income taxes, and more than one-quarter of the population (again, this excludes those who are dependents) are actually not paying net positive the federal taxes, except perhaps the odd excise tax (e.g., 18.1 cents per gallon gas tax). And this of course excludes any non-tax benefits, such as SS benefits, foodstamps and Section 8 housing vouchers.
For better or worse, and reasons aside, these are the numbers.
If the tax breaks and deductions are available to any and all businesses, then they are not "Oil Subsidies".
According to a Greenpeace list, US Govt. "subsidies" to Big Oil includes several categories, some of which might reasonably be considered "subsidies" but are in fact not for Big Oil specifically. Rather they are tax code elements that are available for any business, primarily in the realm of accelerated depreciation of capital assets. There are also loan guarantee and construction bond programs; again, these are available for all industry, not just Big Oil. Perhaps Big Oil utilizes these tax code items more frequently than other industries, but that does not make these "Big Oil subsidies".
The biggest "subsidy" on their list is in fact not a subsidy at all. Some years ago, the Government leased oil fields and agreed on a per barrel royalty structure. When oil was $30/BB, the royalties seemed reasonable to all parties, so the contracts were signed. In some cases, the Government failed to stipulate any royalties at all! Now, though, those royalties are a pittance and the Government wishes it had structured the royalties differently. The difference between what they are making and what they *wished* they were making is often included in the calculations of "Big Oil subsidies". Congress has moved in the past to try to retroactively modify the contracts and demanded that the oil companies accept new leases.
Greenpeace also includes several intangibles in their "Big Oil subsidies" list. Things such as
* Giving money to international financial institutions
* The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve
* Construction and protection of the nation's highway system (if we had 100% EV fleet, wouldn't this be a Big Solar subsidy?)
* Allowing the industry to pollute
Keep the nature of these fake "subsidies" in mind when discussing the issue. The "Green" industry partakes of several of these same subsidies: Modified Accelerated Cost-Recovery System (MACRS), R&D credits, etc., but also receive direct no-doubt-about-it subsides. Like ethanol's $0.50/gallon production subsidy (when it was in effect) not to mention ag subsidies used to prop up the growing of the corn that goes into ethanol, billions of dollars every year going into the pockets of Big Ag, or EV $7500/car subsidy, solar subsides over the years.
", or the vendor decided to "upgrade" in a way that was not back-compatable with old files."
Why does Intuit pop into my head at this reference?
Actually, I am unaware of any women currently on any NBA rosters. Ignoring the small different in men vs women in the population, about half of random people will have 100% likelihood of not being on an NBA team, and about half have a 99.999% likelihood of not being on an NBA team. Those probabilities may still add up to the same thing, but practically, if I meet a random woman black or white, I still can be absolutely certain she is not on an NBA roster.
Saw a TV ad once for a medical show about a man born without a penis getting a "bionic" one. But the blurb said "Andrew is the only person in Britain born without a penis due to a 1 in 20-million condition". I was forced to infer that women in Britain are born with penises.
That, or that people insist on using gender-neutral pronouns even when doing so leads to silliness. Similarly, sportscasters have a checker history of referring to important "firsts" by "African-Americans" except that they sometimes aren't African-American at all...they may be actual Africans from African countries, or may be dark-skinned people born in Britain or elsewhere in Europe ("European-Africans"?).
E.g.
http://www.gelfmagazine.com/ge...
What does Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton have in common with former heavyweight champ Lennox Lewis? They're both famous athletes named "Lewis," of course, but they also have the distinction of being two of the most recognizable African-Britons on the planet. What, you've never heard the term African-Briton before? Perhaps you, like certain media outlets we know, need to learn how to use the term "black."
Here's ESPN's correction after Hamilton won last weekend's Canadian Grand Prix:
"On a June 11 Mike and Mike in the Morning news update on ESPN2, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, the first black person to win an F-1 race, was termed an African American. He is from England."
Here's how the Charlotte Observer expressed regret:
"A story in Monday's Sports section misidentified Lewis Hamilton as Formula One's first African American driver. It should have said he is the series' first black driver. Hamilton is British."
Lennox Lewis was also regularly mislabeled, usually by columnists discussing the "African American" dominance of the heavyweight division.
Of course, it's not only athletes who have to deal with this strange combination of political correctness and geographic ignorance from American writers. Brits Naomi Campbell and Thandie Newton have both been referred to as African Americans. (Newton at least has the African part down, as she was born in Zambia.)
Maybe as punishment, the journalists should be forced to listen to a lecture on the differences between African-Americans and black people by Gary Sheffield.
And my modpoints expired yesterday.
Is the racial bias in the algorithms--which are impinged by race only as 2nd, 3rd... order effects as race was specifically not first-order data--more or less likely to make these errors than human parole boards using their education, training, "gut" and personal biases?
Does a financial AI that uses applicants' Zip Code but specifically does not include race as a factor in deciding who gets loans do a more or less biased job than human bank VP?
Sometimes reality is disproportionate and must be accounted for. "According to racial equality activist Richard Lapchick, the NBA in 2015 was composed of 74.4 percent black players, 23.3 percent white players, 1.8 percent Latino players, and 0.2 percent Asian players." In US population, whites are about 76%, blacks about 13%, Latinos are about 17%, and Asians are about 5%. Are we going to insist that NBA teams scout and draft their teams to prevent racial bias from producing such disproportionate rosters? Maybe we need government-funded programs designed to produce more white basketball players so that they can naturally take their rightful place on a racially proportional NBA roster?
"Obviously at the extreme of a $10k / minute minimum wage, nobody would hire anybody (unless hyperinflation happened), so there are limits. But if you're unconvinced of the possibility, I invite you to also consider something less politically fraught: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. Paradoxically, one can sometimes improve traffic by removing roads, and make traffic worse by adding roads. There are classes of problem for which the optimal form of the "Invisible Hand" gives suboptimal results. Optimizing the economy by optimizing each employment contract is a greedy algorithm, which is not always going to be globally optimal."
You know you've just made the Laffer Curve argument, right?
The Laffer curve assumes that $0 is the revenue raised at the extreme tax rates of 0% and 100%, and that at some point between 0% and 100% there must be a rate between that maximizes government taxation revenue. The actual shape of the curve is uncertain, and there is always a question about whether tax rate of X is to the left or right of the maximal rate. (Note esp. that the Laffer curve doesn't say "reducing tax rates increases revenue"...but that may indeed be the case if the previous rates were on the wrong side of the maximizing rate).
Nevertheless, one implication of the Laffer curve is that increasing tax rates beyond a certain point is counter-productive for raising further tax revenue, and conversely that at some levels, decreasing rates may actually improve revenues. Certainly the same logic applies to wages, in that a minimum wage of 10k/minute means no one gets hired and $0.01/week means some people might be taken advantage of. But it is impossible to know that a minimum wage of X is the "best" wage.
On the other hand, government is not necessarily trying to maximize revenue with taxes, sometimes government is just trying to punish some behaviors and reward others based on what is in favor or disfavor at the time. One might say the same thing about minimum wages, in that governments are not actually interested in helping workers so much as they are happy to punish businesses, or at least be seen as "doing something" even if it has negative consequences.
Environmental Progress is almost certainly not affiliated with Koch brothers or big oil.
Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine "Hero of the Environment" and Green Book Award-winning author and policy expert. For a quarter-century he has advocated solutions to lift all people out of poverty while protecting the natural environment.
Michael is coauthor of visionary books and essays including "The Death of Environmentalism," Break Through, An Ecomodernist Manifesto, "Evolve," and Love Your Monsters. He writes for publications including Scientific American, The New York Times, and the Washington Post.
His research, writings and talks challenge the idea that rising energy consumption is bad for the environment. Michael has made the intertwined moral and scientific case for energy and environmental justice in "An Ecomodernist Manifesto," written with 17 other leading scholars and scientists, in "Why Energy Transitions are the Key to Environmental Progress," coauthored with Rachel Pritzker, and a TEDx talk, "How Humans Save Nature."
Michael is a leading pro-nuclear environmentalist. Michael was featured in "Pandora's Promise," an award-winning film about environmentalists who changed their minds about nuclear. He appeared on "The Colbert Report," and has debated nuclear on CNN "Crossfire" with Ralph Nader, and at UCLA with Mark Jacobsen. His 2016 TED talk is on "How Fear of Nuclear Hurts the Environment."
Michael's 2007 book with Ted Nordhaus, Break Through, was called "prescient" by Time and "the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring" by Wired. Michael is co-founder and Senior Fellow at Breakthrough Institute where he was president from 2003 - 2015 and advisor to MIT's "Future of Nuclear Energy" task force.
Michael has been profiled in the New York Times, Wired, the San Francisco Chronicle, the National Review, The New Republic, and on NPR. His research and writing have appeared in The Harvard Law and Policy Review, Democracy Journal, the PLOS Biology, The New Republic the Wall Street Journal; and cited by the New York Times, Slate, USA Today, Washington Post, New York Daily News, The New Republic.
Michael has been an environmental and social justice advocate for over 25 years. In the 1990s Michael helped save an old-growth redwood forest, and helped force Nike to improve factory conditions in Asia. In the 2000s, Michael advocated for and helped realize an expansion of federal investment in renewables and energy efficiency.
The two authors from Environmental Progress of the article cited from the OP's National Review article:
Mark Nelson, Senior Analyst
Mark Nelson, Senior Analyst, oversees EP's ground-breaking Energy Progress Tracker, the most comprehensive review of nuclear power plants planned, under construction, and at-risk of premature closure.
Mark's research into the environmental impacts of nuclear closures in Germany and California has been cited in the New York Times and other publications.
Mark completed his graduate work in nuclear engineering at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Tony Roulstone, and studied aerospace and mechanical engineering at Oklahoma State University. Mark is a competitive runner, musician and photographer.
Jemin Desai, EP Fellow
Jemin Desai is a student studying electrical engineering and computer sciences, and nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley where he is a staff member for the introductory computer science course. He will receive both B.S. degrees in 2020. He was born in Mumbai, India, and raised in Singapore, Vancouver, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
"We're talking about the FCC, so how about sticking to the USA? I have no idea what the laws are regarding ISPs in Kenya or Zambizia or wherever, but I do know about the USA. There are no ISPs with government granted monopolies."
Local governments, e.g. county or city, provide monopolistic franchise agreements with cable and internet providers. Gas and electric are usually covered by state Public Services Commission and are provided effective natural monopolies.
https://www.wired.com/2013/07/...
"Before building out new networks, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must negotiate with local governments for access to publicly owned “rights of way” so they can place their wires above and below both public and private property. ISPs also need “pole attachment” contracts with public utilities so they can rent space on utility poles for above-ground wires, or in ducts and conduits for wires laid underground.
http://gizmodo.com/5830956/why...
"Throughout most of cable's history, it's been regulated at the local level. Counties and cities were the agencies responsible for allowing cable franchises. That is changing, slightly. More than 20 states now have franchise authority, due largely to intensive lobbying by telcos like Verizon and AT&T. You know you're fucked when you're relying on AT&T to make things better. Ultimately, this patchwork of local regulation means cable companies themselves are often more powerful than the body overseeing them. And as long as none of the micro-monopolies grows too large nationally, it can continue to control the local weather.
That's why I kept saying "local government".
75% of people only have one provider choice because of government grants of monopoly status.
How about some other options?
* ISPs cannot be content providers or affiliated with content providers--they can be a data pipe or a content provider but never both
* In areas where local government has granted access rights to only one provider, use PSC model to mandate that that provider must provide access to other providers for the backbone to the pole (e.g., the gas line to my house was built by one company, but I can chose to get my gas from any provider in the market via the same pipe)
* Local government could build the pipes and lease them to all providers at the same rates--we can't have 100 companies digging up roads to bury cable or pipes, whether it be for electricity, gas, water, sewer, cable/fiber for TV/internet, but a coordinated infrastructure contracted by local government that does all of the above and then leases non-exclusive access to providers makes a lot of sense
Trump largely could have avoided much of this by simply instructing SecState and/or AG to refrain from issuing waivers to 1182 and strictly enforcing same.
E.g. how many Syrians could produce proper paperwork for "documentation of having received vaccination against vaccine-preventable diseases, which shall include at least the following diseases: mumps, measles, rubella, polio, tetanus and diphtheria toxoids, pertussis, influenza type B and hepatitis B, and any other vaccinations against vaccine-preventable diseases recommended by the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices"
Or
(A) In general Any alien who a consular officer or the Attorney General knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, seeks to enter the United States to engage solely, principally, or incidentally in—
(i) any activity (I) to violate any law of the United States relating to espionage or sabotage or (II) to violate or evade any law prohibiting the export from the United States of goods, technology, or sensitive information,
(ii) any other unlawful activity, or
(iii) any activity a purpose of which is the opposition to, or the control or overthrow of, the Government of the United States by force, violence, or other unlawful means,
is inadmissible.
(B) Terrorist activities
(i) In generalAny alien who—
(I) has engaged in a terrorist activity;
(II) a consular officer, the Attorney General, or the Secretary of Homeland Security knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, is engaged in or is likely to engage after entry in any terrorist activity (as defined in clause (iv));
(III) has, under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily harm, incited terrorist activity;
(IV) is a representative (as defined in clause (v)) of—
(aa) a terrorist organization (as defined in clause (vi)); or
(bb) a political, social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity;
(V) is a member of a terrorist organization described in subclause (I) or (II) of clause (vi);
(VI) is a member of a terrorist organization described in clause (vi)(III), unless the alien can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the alien did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the organization was a terrorist organization;
(VII) endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization;
(VIII) has received military-type training (as defined in section 2339D(c)(1) of title 18) from or on behalf of any organization that, at the time the training was received, was a terrorist organization (as defined in clause (vi)); or
(IX) is the spouse or child of an alien who is inadmissible under this subparagraph, if the activity causing the alien to be found inadmissible occurred within the last 5 years,
is inadmissible. An alien who is an officer, official, representative, or spokesman of the Palestine Liberation Organization is considered, for purposes of this chapter, to be engaged in a terrorist activity.
Or
Foreign policy
(i) In general
An alien whose entry or proposed activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is inadmissible
Or
Immigrant membership in totalitarian party
(i) In general
Any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate thereof), domestic or foreign, is inadmissible.
Or
Public charge
(A) In general
Any alien who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, or in the opinion of the Attorney General at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.
And the vast majority of Muslims, about 1 billion of them, from countries not on the list, are not affected.
You'd think, except the original injunction specifically prohibited the administration from even trying to develop said rules and procedures. That part of the injunction was only lifted on June 19th.
No, don't mod parent up.
The original injunction specifically prevented the government from performing the actions referenced. It was only on Jun 12th that the 9th Circuit overrode that part of the injunction, and only Jun 19th that that part of the injunction was actually lifted. So the 90-day or 120-day clock was not ticking at all until then. If they had been doing that work anyway, they'd have been in contempt of court.
Original injunction actually prevented this from being done...
CNN:
"However, the 9th Circuit concluded that US District Court Judge Derrick Watson's decision was overbroad in certain limited respects, and reversed the portions of Watson's ruling that barred the administration from conducting internal reviews of other countries' vetting procedures -- a move Secretary John Kelly called a "big win" last week in an interview with CNN's Tal Kopan.
This part of the ruling "was not narrowly tailored to addressing only the harms alleged," the 9th Circuit panel explained. "For example, internal determinations regarding the necessary information for visa application adjudications do not have an obvious relationship to the constitutional rights at stake or statutory conflicts at issue here. Plaintiffs have not shown how the government's internal review of its vetting procedures will harm them."
Normally, the 9th Circuit's decision would sit for 52 days while the parties tie up loose ends, but last week the Justice Department asked the court for a speedy mandate to make its decision from June 12 take effect immediately -- a request the court granted Monday, thereby specifically allowing the vetting portions of the executive order to proceed now.
The earlier injunctions prevent the Government from even doing this research phase. That was only removed June 12th, so they've only had a small number of days to work on that.
"While the most controversial provisions of the President's revised ban blocking travel to the US remain tied up in the courts, a federal appeals court formally cleared the way late Monday for different portions of the executive order to move forward. The Trump administration can now conduct internal reviews of other countries' vetting procedures for visa applicants while the broader case is on review in the US Supreme Court."
And Brutus is an honorable man.
How can it be a Muslim ban? If anything, it is a ban on people from certain countries believed to include large number of Islamists (which is to say, people who pretend to be Muslim as justification for their murderous ways). One billion Muslims not from those countries are not affected.