Trump Thread

[Husar]

The US tax system is a byzantine thing, designed by special interests and tax accounts/attorneys so that there are any number of ways to legally 'game' the system. Trump almost certainly did nothing illegal with his taxes -- but paid fair money to reasonable shysters to insure that he did not have to pay much if anything.

All taxes are paid by individuals. The only thing various tax laws determine is who is responsible for collecting those taxes. The government collects some, but lets businesses collect even more on its behalf.

I don't think this is in any way special in the US. Maybe a little worse, but other countries' tax codes are just as weird and partially written by lobbyists.
As for the last part, technically yes, but that doesn't make the effect the same, because there is a difference in which individuals pay more. When a corporation has to pay(collect) more taxes, it cuts into the profits, profits which would otherwise go to wealthy investors. It's more of a wealthy people tax than, say, an income tax that only applies to wages and not capital income. The argument that the big business will then create fewer jobs is invalid, because by taxing the little man less, he can start more smaller companies that also create jobs. If only billionaire investors can create jobs anymore, you did something else wrong and have basically made them your inofficial rulers who you depend on.

Legally, I guess you are right it isn't fraud.

But common sense tells us this is all a rigged game to simply move and hide money that otherwise should be going back to the state. And we all know it. Every dollar moved out of the country through these means is a dollar stolen from a hungry mouth on SNAP or from a sick person on Medicare or from a research grant.
Guess that makes me a dumb lefty, but whatever.

The argument that "he did nothing wrong...legally" gets more and more tenuous when the law clearly doesn't bind everyone together but partitions people apart. Ahhh fuck I became Monty.

I wasn't making a moral argument, if you were going to prosecute moral fraud and/or adjust the laws accordingly, two thirds or more of your billionaire class would probably be in jail. Though to be actually moral (throwing everybody in jail for revenge is a bad idea), you'd just nationalize most of their assets.
Then again nationalizing assets they have in Caribbean states might cause some moral issues again (invasion? bullying?).

[Montmorency]

I'm not sure where the thread's focus on international tax evasion is coming from. Maybe this deserves a fuller explication, but briefly to understand what was going on with Trump, we have to think about how income is defined and treated in the tax code. Crucial concepts are adjusted gross income (AGI) and business income.

Trump's businesses were typically structured as partnerships (1065) and S-corporations (1120S), so he ultimately calculated and reported business income taxes as personal taxes (1040) on pass-through income. This is distinct from any capital gains income such as stocks and dividends, as well as other earned income such as his own salary. The concept of income for tax purposes, especially as you get richer, tends to have little to do with income in the vernacular sense of 'money I made'. There's financial income and losses (such as the money Trump spends and the salary he pays himself, or revenue vs. expenses), and non-financial income and losses (typically capital assets such as buildings and equipment). You add them up on the tax form and apply certain deductions, credits, exemptions, allowances, etc. This is roughly analogous to "taxable income" (though there are further deductions applied to AGI to get the true taxable income).

If business losses are high enough you can shelter future income from tax, which is ideally intended as a boost for struggling companies.The concept of depreciation applies to the value of capital - it "depreciates" over time. This gradual loss of value of operating capital is counted like a business expense and can be deducted from income. The question is, what is the nature of Trump's reported losses, which in some years nudged 10 figures? Were they financial in nature such as in his expenses exceeding the revenues of his holdings, or was Trump reporting a loss of value in his buildings and casinos? But Trump's declared negative income was too astronomical to be explained fully by legitimate depreciation, like trying to obfuscate a missing pallet of grocery wholesale items by claiming you ate it all. It was likely a combination of both financial and non-financial losses reinforcing each other, but mostly the former - just with borrowed money. Trump's properties lose money and value operating even as he spends on them and buys other unproductive assets or launches unproductive ventures, he covers it up by over-leveraging his properties by taking out loans against their value to increase his cash flow, he can't pay back the principal on the loans (presumably he stretches to qualify for deductions on interest) and so bluffs into more debt while reporting further income losses based on negative equity and all the borrowed money he's spending, his insolvent business entities default on loans, Trump liquidates the relevant entities and capital with a tax advantage and suffers no liability for his business losses nor incurs net tax burden and gets to move on to the next grift, such as convincing people he's a brilliant salesman and securing no-risk branding deals for steady income. And that's the straightforward bit.

Where Trump possibly broke the law is in the case where much of the losses claimed were probably unpaid loans, that he claimed as losses what the IRS counts as gains. If you default on debt or have it forgiven, the cancelled debt counts as taxable income. If you invert income you should be paying taxes on into losses that further trigger an IRS-sponsored tax shelter, swindle creditors of millions to plug your business negative cash flow and tax burden, that's pretty bad. It is also conceivable he could have accomplished in a legally-grey way by taking advantage of the Gitlitz Loophole, closed by Congress in 2002.


The telling closing paragraph in the NYT article:

While Donald Trump reported hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for 1990 and 1991, Fred Trump’s [Donald's father] returns showed a positive income of $53.9 million, with only one major loss: $15 million invested in his son’s latest apartment project.

Telling quote from an interview with Ivanka Trump:

She tells a story—which may also feel familiar at this point—about walking down Fifth Avenue with her father around the time of his divorce from her mother, when Ivanka was 9 or 10 years old. They saw a homeless man sitting outside Trump Tower. “I remember my father pointing to him and saying ‘You know, that guy has 8 billion dollars more than me,’ because he was in such extreme debt at that point,” she recalls. “It makes me all the more proud of my parents, that they got through that.” It’s remarkable that Trump père was so frank with his very young daughter about his financial problems; it’s clear that he has always trusted her. Even a decade later, however, it does not seem to occur to Ivanka that her father was not actually poorer than the homeless man sitting outside the building with her last name on it. [lol] Instead, she frames the story as a revelation, using it as a canny opportunity to reflect on her father’s strength, resilience, and insight.

To be scrupulous one can't be confident what actually constituted Trump's reported losses without more tax and financial information. But look, Trump is a known tax fraud and a failed businessman. He is a tax fraud because that's how he and his family have always lived, as career criminals (established in so much reporting), and he is a failed businessman because his ventures routinely lost money and had to be liquidated or closed while Trump stiffed creditors of billions, all while hardly even growing his own personal fortune.

ACIN what I don't like is rich people shuffling their liabilities onto the government or other people. "Incentives" nothing, let them pay for their gambles.

[Montmorency]

You know how we talk about how immigrant scapegoating is suicidally short-sighted, because employers want to treat citizens just like they treat desperate immigrants?

Here's Trump making the quiet part a little louder:

HILTON: And one thing that people have speculated about was that it might include E-Verify. Is that going to be in the --

TRUMP: So E-Verify is going to be possibly a part of it. The one problem is E-Verify is so tough that in some cases, like farmers, they’re not – they’re not equipped for E-Verify. I mean I’d say that’s against Republicans. A lot of the Republicans say you go through an E-Verify. I used it when I built the hotel down the road on Pennsylvania Avenue. I use a very strong E-Verify system. And we would go through 28 people – 29, 30 people before we found one that qualified.

EDIT: Supporting docs for the more general problem in capitalism:

Indeed, inflation targeting has always been coupled with a strong commitment to restraining the claims of workers. Paul Volcker is now widely admired as the hero who slew the inflation dragon, but as Fed chair in the 1980s, he considered rolling back the power of organized labor — in terms of both working conditions and wages — to be his number one problem.

As one of Volcker’s colleagues argued, the fundamental goal of high rates was that

labor begins to get the point that if they get too much in wages they won’t have a business to work for. I think that really is beginning to happen now and that’s why I’m more optimistic. . . . When Pan Am workers are willing to take 10 percent wage cuts because the airlines are in trouble, I think those are signs that we’re at the point where something can really start to happen.

Volcker’s successors at the Fed approached the inflation problem similarly. Alan Greenspan saw the fight against rising prices as, at its essence, a project of promoting weakness and insecurity among workers; he famously claimed that “traumatized workers” were the reason strong growth with low inflation was possible in the 1990s, unlike in previous decades.

Testifying before Congress in 1997, Greenspan attributed the “extraordinary’” and “exceptional” performance of the nineties economy to “a heightened sense of job insecurity” among workers “and, as a consequence, subdued wages.”

Hey @Husar, you're right, they - neoliberals and conservatives both - want to reduce us to peonage (maybe more applicable than "serfhood").

[Strike For The South]

The e-verify thing is illustrative because it is an intuitive solution that the vast middle ground of people would support but is opposed by nearly all the special interest groups.

These employers want to pay low wages, want workers who can't organize, and want workers who can be easily "otherized" by the wider populace. They already do the whole repugnant dog and pony show where they try to deny them legal services. They want and underclass.

[Strike For The South]

More Avenatti shenanigans:https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...aniels-1340074

It is worth noting that this man had an undercurrent of "extremely online" support as someone who would fight back against Trump. People were looking to draft him into the DNC. The lesson we should be taking from Trump is that sometimes, spectacle is just that, spectacle. Unfortunately people seem to be taking the opposite lesson.

[rory_20_uk]

The e-verify thing is illustrative because it is an intuitive solution that the vast middle ground of people would support but is opposed by nearly all the special interest groups.

These employers want to pay low wages, want workers who can't organize, and want workers who can be easily "otherized" by the wider populace. They already do the whole repugnant dog and pony show where they try to deny them legal services. They want and underclass.

It seems that the USA grudgingly freed the slaves - as long as they can have people they can basically treat the same way and keep down as effectively.

I have to say the design of the system is magnificent in its malignancy where so many separate laws come together to restrict both access to justice and in many cases access to voting, education and healthcare. And the cycle is designed to self perpetuate where from the great morass a few are given slight powers and who hate those without all the more because they realise how close they in fact are - and all but ignoring their "betters" who have done an amazing job of ensuring nothing really changes.

[Montmorency]

On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP. The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied,..
....at which time the Tariffs will be removed. Details from the White House to follow.

Looks like he doesn't want to renegotiate NAFTA after all.

Key words this week according to the White House:

Natural gas = "freedom gas"
Carbon dioxide = "molecules of U.S. freedom"
John McCain = unperson

[Strike For The South]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...rce=reddit.com

Just another in a long line of abuses levied against a group who has been otherized for the sake of profits and racism. Crazy how the cavarns never seem to wash over American cities but these people do seem to be held in squalor and contempt. Almost like its all fear mongering.

[Tuuvi]

My boss was watching Fox News in the office today and infuriatingly they blame the whole situation on Democrats for not wanting to pass tougher immigration and asylum laws.

What anti-immigrant conservatives refuse to understand is that the migrants coming from Central America have already been through hell just to make it to the Mexican/American border, they are desperate and no amount of border security, detainment and family separation is going to dissuade people from making the journey.

The humane way to stop immigration would be to stabilize the situation in Central America through humanitarian aid but of course big-brained Trump did the opposite and cut foreign aid because Guatemala won't recreate the Berlin Wall and stop their citizens from fleeing endemic poverty and gang violence. It really gives the lie to the anti-immigrant claim that they're not racist and they just want the border to be enforced.

[Montmorency]

My boss was watching Fox News in the office today and infuriatingly they blame the whole situation on Democrats for not wanting to pass tougher immigration and asylum laws.

What anti-immigrant conservatives refuse to understand is that the migrants coming from Central America have already been through hell just to make it to the Mexican/American border, they are desperate and no amount of border security, detainment and family separation is going to dissuade people from making the journey.

The humane way to stop immigration would be to stabilize the situation in Central America through humanitarian aid but of course big-brained Trump did the opposite and cut foreign aid because Guatemala won't recreate the Berlin Wall and stop their citizens from fleeing endemic poverty and gang violence. It really gives the lie to the anti-immigrant claim that they're not racist and they just want the border to be enforced.

The president is known to believe that shooting people at the border would be an effective deterrent.

We don't do like other countries. Other countries stand there with machine guns ready to fire. We can't do that and I wouldn't want to do that, OK? It's a very effective way of doing it and I wouldn't want to do it. We can't do it. But - we do, if we have barriers, we have the walls like we're building now, and - and building a lot - a lot of people don't think we're building walls, we're building massive, many many many miles of walls - right now.

Even more interesting when combined with his prior sentiments that rock-throwing should be treated as a lethal threat, and that federal border agents who violate the law can expect the President's support. But I'm sure it's nothing. But we do need to do something about these "swarms" of "invaders" "infesting" our country...

[Montmorency]

I can't not update this from earlier:



The Dow Jones hit 25,000 again this Tuesday.

Dow Jones has best week of the year!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Literally every half-year.

[Tuuvi]

I'm a believer in the theory that Trump probably has some form of dementia.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I'm a believer in the theory that Trump probably has some form of dementia.

They progressives say that of all of our conservative pols. It is easier to assume that someone who does not view the world as you do, while looking at the same data, is mentally off kilter in some way.

In "The Donald's" case, I think any claim of dementia is just trying to be 'nice.' In point of fact, he really IS an asshat, and of his own free will.

[Tuuvi]

They progressives say that of all of our conservative pols. It is easier to assume that someone who does not view the world as you do, while looking at the same data, is mentally off kilter in some way.

In "The Donald's" case, I think any claim of dementia is just trying to be 'nice.' In point of fact, he really IS an asshat, and of his own free will.

For me it's not his conservative politics that lead me to think he has dementia but rather the fact that he's in old age and has a tendency to ramble incoherently and post incredibly dumb tweets like the ones in Monty's post above. He just seems like someone who's easily confused and is mentally deteriorating. He's both an asshat and a sundowning old man.

For what it's worth I actually think his dementia is a godsend in some ways, I shudder to think what would happen if we had a president with Trump's views on immigrants, Muslims, the press, and the political opposition who was actually competent, or in other words was devious enough to put his policies into place without getting shot down by the courts and congress.

[Montmorency]

They progressives say that of all of our conservative pols. It is easier to assume that someone who does not view the world as you do, while looking at the same data, is mentally off kilter in some way.

In "The Donald's" case, I think any claim of dementia is just trying to be 'nice.' In point of fact, he really IS an asshat, and of his own free will.

Which conservative politicians have progressives judged to have dementia?

It's not about worldview but other behavioral and psychological characteristics. I don't have any firm conclusion about Trump, but asshats are certainly capable of experiencing cognitive decline, right? Just look at Ronald Reagan.

[Gilrandir]

What can we say of a nation if a person like that will get elected again (as likely as not)?

[a completely inoffensive name]

What can we say of a nation if a person like that will get elected again (as likely as not)?

Nothing without taking into context the electoral system of that nation.

[Husar]

Nothing without taking into context the electoral system of that nation.

What can we say about a nation that has an electoral system that enables such a person to get elected?

[Strike For The South]

brink·man·ship
/ˈbriNGkmənˌSHip/
noun
the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, especially in politics.
"in any game of brinkmanship, it is possible that one side will collapse suddenly"

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...-nixon-1359209

Just another inch, Just another inch, Just another inch

[Gilrandir]

Nothing without taking into context the electoral system of that nation.

Then change it, for God's sake.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Then change it, for God's sake.

Process already exists to change it. Most of the powers that be are happy with the current system.

[Gilrandir]

Process already exists to change it. Most of the powers that be are happy with the current system.

What abour rank and file? It is from them that the initiative should come.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

What abour rank and file? It is from them that the initiative should come.

Process Source

Difficult to 'grass roots' this. Proposed amendment must come from Congress on a 2/3 supermajority in both OR from a Convention called by 2/3 or the legislatures (the same percentage required to ratify). So sidestepping the party leadership is functionally undoable. Would require a 'sea change' level shift in the rank and file support that convinced the powers that be that they would be tossed out of office if they did not vote to amend.

[Gilrandir]

Process Source

Difficult to 'grass roots' this. Proposed amendment must come from Congress on a 2/3 supermajority in both OR from a Convention called by 2/3 or the legislatures (the same percentage required to ratify). So sidestepping the party leadership is functionally undoable. Would require a 'sea change' level shift in the rank and file support that convinced the powers that be that they would be tossed out of office if they did not vote to amend.

Then you are doomed.

[Montmorency]

Alright, it, I'll be using "evil" to describe the troglodytic fascist goblins in this world. I can be obdurate to the news, but to directly hear such vile, destructive drivel enough to ban everyone left in the Backroom multiple times over never fails to set me on edge. If I were to reveal myself an enemy to these scum...

[Pannonian]

What is the history on foreign governments wanting British diplomats replaced for reasons other than misconduct? Have British governments acceded to these demands in the past?

[Montmorency]

What is the history on foreign governments wanting British diplomats replaced for reasons other than misconduct? Have British governments acceded to these demands in the past?

When studying history, avoid using modern norms to assess historical practice.

[Pannonian]

When studying history, avoid using modern norms to assess historical practice.

Are you trying to be clever? I'm asking for historical precedence and normal practice, which is how common law and diplomacy works.

[Tuuvi]

Welp, Trump just told Ilhan Omar to "go back to Africa".

[Pannonian]

Welp, Trump just told Ilhan Omar to "go back to Africa".

TBF, Omar's ancestors did originate in Africa. So did mine. And Trump's.