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[McTraveller]

Leaving the US because of "fear" seems really... overblown to me at first thought.  It seems more like a political statement of sorts.  Maybe I'm just sitting high and comfortable in my privileged position though.

Regarding donations: it's never financially more beneficial to an individual donate money and take the tax write off then simply paying the tax. If you donate $100 your taxes reduce by the marginal tax rate - so $15 or $25 or even at the high end, $38.  So two things here: 1) People can't end up with more cash if they donate than if they don't, even though donations result in a tax break and 2) If you donate $100, all $100 goes to some charity. If you keep that $100, at most $38 is going to "charitable" works like welfare or whatever (and you keep at least $62) - direct donations to charitable organizations are on average much more dollar-efficient.  And that's even accounting for the crazy stats you see about the few charity organizations where only $0.50 of each dollar goes to direct care or whatever.

The main problem I see with a lot of charity works is that they don't ever really seem to be focused on the root cause of a problem and instead are more palliative. And yes, I've seen all sorts of stuff about how if you just give money to the disadvantaged it helps them out a lot.  But I'm not convinced - otherwise the problem would be solved by now. I think more has to do with we need mental health care reform; that would help gun crime, homelessness, and numerous other issues. We keep focusing on symptoms, not causes...

But that goes back to the overreaction, I think, to abuses that happened in asylums and saying that asylums are therefore always bad, instead of addressing the abuses therein.

[Reelya]

Well a lot of the benefit of sharing is indirect. Welfare money is direct stimulus of the local economy, if we only focus on the help it gives to the recipient we neglect the effect that money has on the economy as a whole. It's benefiting many more people that the direct recipient, so focusing on just how it affects one life is ignoring that economics is a social thing. Plus the things that are not happening now because that money is there (e.g. if you feed a poor person, you might reduce some incentive to get a job, but you're also reducing incentive to commit crimes, and thus saving money on prisons). The negatives (as in negation: things not happening) are harder for people to conceive than the positives (things that are happening).

For example, say that you spend $1 million in the slums on welfare, that money gets spent locally, creates $1 million worth of turnover for local businesses. So you fed $1 million worth of people, and generated $1 million worth of business revenues. Now, you decide things will be better if you take the $1 million out of welfare, and give it as tax breaks to the middle class. But the problem is here: say the middle class spend that $1 million, it then creates $1 million worth of business revenues. The exact same revenues that were created when the poor people spent it. You've just shifted the same amount of jobs around, except now you didn't feed the poor.

So, we can talk about cutting welfare money and giving that back as middle-class tax breaks, and saying this will help the poor, but the problem is that the money is currently flowing in the lower-class neighborhoods, and it won't be if we shift it to the middle-class suburbs. The argument for tax breaks is that people will consume more after the tax breaks, and therefore make more jobs. But the problem is that giving a dollar and giving back a dollar are the exact same thing as far as economics is concerned. Both stimulate the economy by $1. It's a shell game, but you can actually get some leverage by taking money from those less likely to spend it, and giving money to those most likely to spend it - e.g. the poor. Which is why tax-and-spend can in fact work - not every dollar spent anywhere creates the same amount of economic activity and jobs. Feeding the masses creates a lot of jobs.

BTW look at the levels that consumption have reached. Americans and other westerners consume far more than they need, it's basically plateaued. Even poor people eat way too much cheap food and have too many toys. With tax breaks, the value-adding is in quality now, not quantity, and/or merely slashing costs while serving the same number of customers. And that doesn't really add many jobs, as the emphasis shifts to more expensive ingredients and technology.

[smjjames]

I don't know about other countries, but wages have more or less plateued here for decades, could that be a factor?

[alway]

Previous post snip

Unfortunately, this post lacks actual figures, so here's some to back this up, from the non-partisan CBO: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/workingpaper/49925-FiscalMultiplier_1.pdf
Page 11 has the range estimates for the so-called "Fiscal Multiplier" which is the term to look for if you want data on this sort of thing.

CBO expects that the economic effects of changes in fiscal policies are roughly symmetric, meaning that under similar economic
conditions the size of the fiscal multiplier is the same for stimulative polices (such as increases in government spending or
decreases in taxes) as for contractionary policies (such as decreases in government spending or increases in taxes).

In other words, raising taxes by $1.00 has the same contraction of the economy as the increase resulting from decreasing taxes by $1.00 (so these figures generally work for both talking about cutting or increasing functions, be they taxes or services).

Estimated Multipliers (a low end to high end range estimate)
low high
0.5  2.5   Purchases of Goods and Services by the Federal Government 
0.4  2.2   Transfer Payments to State and Local Governments for Infrastructure
0.4  1.8   Transfer Payments to State and Local Governments for Other Purposes
0.4  2.1   Transfer Payments to Individuals
0.2  1.0   One-Time Payments to Retirees
0.3  1.5   Two-Year Tax Cuts for Lower- and Middle-Income People
0.1  0.6   One-Year Tax Cut for Higher-Income People
0.2  0.8   Extension of First-Time Homebuyer Credit
0.0  0.4   Corporate Tax Provisions Primarily Affecting Cash Flow
(on a side note, copy-paste broke the chart, so let me know if you see something I pasted into the wrong place)

What those Fiscal Multiplier numbers mean is how many dollars the economy increases or decreases as a result of these policies. These numbers are some of the most critical to good economic policy because it will tell you if you're doing the right thing for economic growth. Based on this chart, $1.00 of government spending on First-Time Homebuyer Credit results in $.20 to $.80 of economic growth. Which means your government's tax base has increased by less than the policy cost to enact, and so you don't really have a way to make your dollar back. Likewise, if you cut spending on this credit by $1.00, your economy would shrink by $.20 to $.80, but you would end up with a dollar to put elsewhere. This gives you the *true cost* of the policy, how much does it cost/benefit the economy, at which point you can start asking whether the societal benefits are worth the real cost.

Notably, many of these ranges are very large; and for good reason: building a bridge in an uninhabited forest won't grow your economy by much, but doing so in a city can. So there's still a lot of administrative wiggle room to make a policy a success or failure.

What's also notable is the multipliers for a lot of tax-related policies. $1.00 of tax cuts to the wealth grows your economy by only 10-60 cents. If paid for by reducing spending on infrastructure, that $.10-$.60 of growth comes at the cost of $0.40 to $2.20 of growth. (likewise by doing the opposite, you can get $.40 to $2.20 of growth at the expense of $.10 to $.60 of growth by building infrastructure and paying for it by increasing taxes on the wealthy). The other big one is corporate taxes -- increasing taxes on corporations simply hoarding money barely harms the economy but results in having more money available for allocating towards policies with a greater effect.

These numbers are very much a snapshot in time and place -- and will change based on government policies enacted. It's likely a highly non-linear space, but the government could at the very least attempt to maximize economic activity by doing a hill-climbing algorithm. Put money where it helps most, and take it from where it hurts least to get a stronger economy. These figures are pretty much the only justification for the government or its officials to talk about 'helping the economy' without being complete bullshitters.

[Descan]

the main problem with the donation vs. charity is that, at the times when the most number of people most need it (recessions, economic downturns, mortgage crises, etc) is when charity tends to dry up.

[Reelya]

Holy shit that second link.

My brain is leaking out of my ears.

edit: Even the conspiracy nuts are giving it a pasting for being lunacy in the comments ahaha

It's even more notably, when you realize the top story on the site is about pizzagate, and about 2/3rds of the commenters a pro-pizzagate. You have to be pretty loony for everyone to be against your article on that site.

[Sergarr]

Trump says U.S. not necessarily bound by 'one China' policy

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said the United States did not necessarily have to stick to its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of "one China," questioning nearly four decades of policy in a move likely to antagonize Beijing.

Trump's comments on "Fox News Sunday" came after he prompted a diplomatic protest from China over his decision to accept a telephone call on Dec. 2 from Taiwan's president.

"I fully understand the 'one China' policy, but I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'one China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade," Trump told Fox.

"Give Trump a chance" - Obama, making probably the biggest mistake of his life.

[smjjames]

Here's something not Trump related, JABRI (Just Another Bright Republican Idea) : http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2681273-washington-state-legislators-propose-bill-to-allow-guns-into-sports-stadiums In Washington state of all places.

Trump says U.S. not necessarily bound by 'one China' policy

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said the United States did not necessarily have to stick to its long-standing position that Taiwan is part of "one China," questioning nearly four decades of policy in a move likely to antagonize Beijing.

Trump's comments on "Fox News Sunday" came after he prompted a diplomatic protest from China over his decision to accept a telephone call on Dec. 2 from Taiwan's president.

"I fully understand the 'one China' policy, but I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'one China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade," Trump told Fox.

"Give Trump a chance" - Obama, making probably the biggest mistake of his life.

He's already said that he wants to confront China, so, it's no surprise. However, his appointment of Iowa Governor Terry Branstad (who has a good relationship with China's leader, economically) as ambassador to China could indicate otherwise. It's hard to tell if he actually has a plan or if he's winging it, sometimes it seems like he has a plan, sometimes it seems like he's winging it.

[Rolan7]

But hey, Clinton reached almost Romney levels of rhetoric towards Russia, I mean definitely would have started a war, so really she's just as bad as Trump.  (I am mocking the common false equivalency with sarcasm)

[martinuzz]

The question is now, which country will China invade first. South Korea, The Philippines, Japan, or Poland?

[smjjames]

The question is now, which country will China invade first. South Korea, The Philippines, Japan, or AsianPoland?

FIFY

[Strife26]

The question is now, which country will China invade first. South Korea, The Philippines, Japan, or AsianPoland?

FIFY

Itself, obviously

[smjjames]

WTF http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/john-bolton-russia-hack-a-false-flag-232490 This guy is supposedly going to be nominated for Deputy Secretary of State....

This leap of circular logic especially of his: ""I do think it's critical to answer the question that I posed: If you think the Russians did this, then why did they leave fingerprints?""

That's like asking why did a murderer leave fingerprints on a murder weapon. This is just straight up tinfoil-hat loonery.

Rand Paul has already vowed to block any Bolton nomination.

I have no idea whether the fingerprints left behind would be considered 'rookie mistakes' or not, but even the most meticulous hacker would leave behind evidence if you knew where to look, simply because people are people and people make mistakes or slip up all the time.

[Neonivek]

Or... Russia didn't even bother to hide it... given that the nature of their work it would be impossible to cover up.

[smjjames]

Or it's just people being people.

Anyways, funny how Rand Paul is being a voice of reason here when he's usually seen as being on the fringes. Also, earlier, Sarah Palin was calling out Trumps cabinet picks for cronyism. It's been a strange year....