quote:

Originally posted by signewt:
Good for the electronic wheelbarrow companies
I see where the pending release of 30 Terrabite hard drive
followed by 50TB soon. Just in time to haul all the vaporware 0s to account
for our New Poverty Enhancent Act.

Man, what in the world are you talking about? Speak plainly, please. Be clear. What you posted makes absolutely no sense to me.

Yay - more debt and money wasted on things that make us weaker not stronger.

+

Visions of the prewar German currency crisis

required literally wheelbarrows full to buy
groceries.

Our digital platforms metaphorically need larger
payload capacity to process ever larger numbers.

Terabyte hard drives are market product that seems to
meet a need.
Juxtaposition of 2 different eras with similar economic
crisis produced what seemed like a pithy entertaining
comparison. Apologies if that failed.

Please don't drop acid while posting.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
It's clear to me that Manchin had a number he could be purchased for and the Dems finally found it, just in time to give Biden a "win" 3 months before the mid-terms.

Agreed.
If he was a man of his word, he wouldn't have flipped.
I for one am not so sure about the Red Wave come Mid-terms but we'll see.

It’s been proven time and again that everything that Schumer is associated with is bad for America. This is no different. Too bad Manchin caved in.

I am hopeful for Republicans in the mid terms but it would be no surprise if they fail to put on a full court press leading up to the voting and blow the opportunity.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
The scheming strategery of Joe Manchin is as predictable as the scheming strategery of Mitch McConnell.

Yeah, but in this case, McConnell got totally rolled by Manchin and Schumer. McConnell tells Schumer to back off on reconciliation and he'll get no pushback on the CHIPS legislation, and as soon as that legislation gets a positive vote in the senate, here comes Manchin and his new slimmed down BBB recon bill. Way to go Mitchie, you totally got rolled by pure garbage.

quote:

Originally posted by joatmonv:
I for one am not so sure about the Red Wave come Mid-terms but we'll see.

I've said it numerous times, the only group to worry about this fall is the Repubs given they can screw up virtually anything.

quote:

McConnell tells Schumer to back off on reconciliation and he'll get no pushback on the CHIPS legislation, and as soon as that legislation gets a positive vote in the senate, here comes Manchin and his new slimmed down BBB recon bill. Way to go Mitchie, you totally got rolled by pure garbage.

Or Mitch was in on it and the DC UNIPARTY strikes again.

The Schumer-Manchin Tax and Subsidy Pact
New taxes and price controls to pay for green corporate welfare for the politically favored.

Talk about bad timing. As the economy slouches near recession, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin late Wednesday unveiled a tax-and-spending deal that they call the Inflation Reduction Act. Is their aim to reduce inflation by chilling business investment and the economy?



Mr. Manchin is selling the deal as deficit reduction and a rescue for fossil fuels. If he believes this, he hasn’t thought through the impact of the 725-page bill. A more accurate name would be the Business Investment Reduction and Distortion Act since that will be the result of its $433 billion in climate and healthcare spending, and $615 billion in new taxes and drug price-control “savings.”

Start with the 15% minimum tax on corporate book income over $1 billion, which Democrats claim will raise $313 billion through 2031. This new alternative minimum tax will slam businesses whose taxable income is lower than the profits on their financial statements owing to the likes of investment expensing, tax credits and business deductions.

Many companies pay less than the 21% corporate tax rate because they can expense investments under the tax code up-front. Hence, the new tax will increase the cost of business investment and—irony alert—the Tax Foundation forecasts the coal industry would be hardest hit. Yet green-energy tax credits would be exempt from the new tax.



Businesses will have more incentive to sink money into green ventures whether or not they are the best uses of corporate capital. This will magnify investment distortions created by the bill’s $369 billion in climate spending, most of which is corporate welfare.

Companies will get tax credits for spending on wind, solar, critical minerals, biofuels, hydrogen, carbon capture, nuclear, “sustainable” aviation fuel, lithium-ion batteries, electric-vehicle charging stations and more. Auto makers will get $20 billion in cheap federal loans for building “clean vehicle” factories.


W

The Biden Administration is using regulation to essentially mandate that auto makers churn out electric vehicles. Now taxpayers will subsidize that cost, on top of the $7,500 EV tax credits so affluent Americans can buy more Teslas. The bill removes the 200,000 manufacturer cap for the $7,500 EV tax credit, which GM, Tesla and Toyota have hit and Ford soon will.

Last year’s infrastructure bill provided tens of billions of climate pork for states. Now they get a second helping. Democrats are also giving Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s green venture-capital fund a $40 billion infusion. How many Solyndras will that fund?

All of this will steer private investment into green energy at the cost of reduced investment in fossil fuels. Wind and solar subsidies are already creating distortions in power markets that make the electric grid less reliable and energy more expensive. The expansion of subsidies will compound these problems.

Most climate spending also comes with prevailing wage and domestic content requirements that will drive up project costs. How will this help reduce inflation?

The Schumer-Manchin deal is also a raid on drug companies. The bill will require the Health and Human Services Secretary to “negotiate” Medicare prices—i.e., impose price controls—for dozens of drugs. But the $288 billion in putative savings are fanciful. Manufacturers will hedge potential future losses by launching drugs at higher prices.

Generic manufacturers say price controls will dampen their incentive to develop copycats, which will result in higher prices for all drugs down the road. The bill will also discourage investment in innovative treatments that could reduce future healthcare spending.

Democrats plan to use the phantom savings to extend sweetened Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years. The subsidies are sure to be extended again in 2025, and their cost will grow as insurers raise premiums to pocket the larger payments.

Speculative revenue of $124 billion will also come from an $80 billion boost for the IRS. Most of this will finance more audits. The rich can afford more tax lawyers, but middle and upper-middle class Americans will be inclined to settle IRS claims, however meritless, lest they spend even more to defend themselves.

Mr. Manchin says that in return for all this he won a commitment from Democratic leaders for a vote this year on a separate bill reforming federal permitting rules for pipelines and the like. The details will be crucial here—not least because there are many ways progressives will try to kill the permitting reforms in Congress, or via regulation and litigation.

Messrs. Schumer and Manchin played GOP Senators for chumps (see nearby), but they’re doing the same to Americans by telling them the bill will reduce the deficit.


link; https://www.wsj.com/articles/t...71?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
The scheming strategery of Joe Manchin is as predictable as the scheming strategery of Mitch McConnell.

Yeah, but in this case, McConnell got totally rolled by Manchin and Schumer. McConnell tells Schumer to back off on reconciliation and he'll get no pushback on the CHIPS legislation, and as soon as that legislation gets a positive vote in the senate, here comes Manchin and his new slimmed down BBB recon bill. Way to go Mitchie, you totally got rolled by pure garbage.

quote:

Originally posted by joatmonv:
I for one am not so sure about the Red Wave come Mid-terms but we'll see.

I've said it numerous times, the only group to worry about this fall is the Repubs given they can screw up virtually anything.

You're absolutely right. Never underestimate the ability of the Republicans to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And even if they do win a majority, they'll just screw around & get nothing accomplished anyhow.

From what I understand this is a much smaller package than the Build Back Better. I'm hearing they might just have to use their reconciliation bullet for the year to do this. The far left is squealing about a couple of sections of this bill that opens up areas of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska for oil leases. Ultimately they are screwing themselves. 1. Raising tax rates during a bad economy is stupid. Spending boat loads during bad inflation is extra stupid. Investing in old technology (wind and solar) with no future is extremely stupid.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/20...chumer-climate-deal/

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goose5,

The Bill as written will increase taxes on MOST Americans.

The Schumer-Manchin Tax Increase on Everyone
Their Senate bill hits U.S. manufacturing especially hard, and it raises taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 a year.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wants a Senate vote on his partisan tax deal with Joe Manchin as early as this week, and no wonder he wants to rush it through. The more Americans learn what’s in this tax-and-spend behemoth, the more they’ll dislike it.

Start with the authors’ central claim that the bill will reduce the deficit and thus inflation. The Penn Wharton Budget Model, which Sen. Manchin has been known to watch, examined the details of Schumer-Manchin and found that it doesn’t contain any net deficit reduction until 2027.

“The impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero” through 2031, say the Penn Wharton modelers. We don’t agree with those who think deficit reduction leads in a straight line to lower inflation, but that’s what the Democrats claim for their bill. If the first deficit reduction doesn’t come for five years, what’s the help on inflation today?

The $327 billion in new taxes could slow inflation if the economy falls into recession, and that may be the quiet expectation. The tax increases on business will discourage investment while the Federal Reserve is also raising business costs with higher interest rates. But tax policy should be working in the opposite direction to encourage investment when the Fed is tightening and the economy is close to recession.



Evidence is emerging that the new Schumer-Manchin 15% minimum tax on corporate-book income is especially harmful to U.S. manufacturing firms. An analysis by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), which is hardly a nest of supply-siders, found that 49.7% of the tax would hit U.S. manufacturers.

The book-income minimum tax would hit the accelerated depreciation in the tax code that lets businesses write off investment in, say, new factories. Wholesale trade (9.3%), retail trade (4.9%) and information (11.5%) companies would get off relatively easy by comparison.

This new tax increase arrives only days after the Senate passed a $280 billion subsidy bill for computer-chip manufacturers in the name of keeping the U.S. globally competitive. Now Democrats want to take a chunk of that back for themselves via the minimum book tax. Subsidies for a few, tax increases for the many. So much for President Biden’s claim that he wants a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing.

An analysis by the National Association of Manufacturers says the tax in 2023 alone will reduce real GDP by $68.5 billion and cut labor income by $17.1 billion. One well-known economic truth is that corporations don’t really pay taxes. They are essentially tax collectors, as the corporate tax rate ultimately falls on some combination of workers, shareholders and customers. Raise the corporate tax rate, and you’re cutting wages and salaries for workers.

No surprise, that’s exactly what the Joint Committee on Taxation found in its analysis of the Schumer-Manchin bill’s distributional impact. The JCT finds that average tax rates will increase for nearly every income category in 2023 under the bill.

Taxes will rise by $16.7 billion in 2023 on Americans earning less than $200,000 a year. Taxpayers earning between $200,000 and $500,000 will pay $14.1 billion more. This gives the lie to Democratic claims that no one earning under $400,000 will pay more taxes under the bill, a promise Mr. Biden also made in his campaign. The reality is that the Schumer-Manchin bill is a tax increase on nearly every American.

If Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and other Democrats want to sign up for this tax ball-and-chain barely three months before an election, they will be responsible for the economic consequences. Their new tax on workers is unlikely to be a political or economic winner.

link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/t...rers-jct-democrats-i

The CBO says the Inflation Reduction Act will cost at least $740 billion, so Biden will have to print more dollars, further jacking up inflation, giving the lie to the title. The bulk of spending will pay for extension of ACA insurance subsidies. Pelosi, et al. hail this as benefiting those in need, but that is another highly deceptive promise. The bulk of the enhanced subsidies will go to middle-class individuals who currently have private insurance but can save money by accepting these generous government handouts and canceling their private coverage. Result: Medicaid will drive private insurers out of the market, and Americans will be left with — surprise! — single-payer.

The assurances given for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act are a continuation of a "lies, damned lies, and health care promises" strategy Democrats have been deploying for more than 60 years, starting with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society addenda — Medicare and Medicaid — to the Social Security Act.

Read more:
Biden's Inflation Bill Is a Nest of Health Care Lies
By Deane Waldman, M.D.
https://www.americanthinker.co...ealth_care_lies.html

Something is Looming Geopolitically, and We Better Start Taking It Seriously

As a result of western governments’ taking collective action under the auspices of a ‘climate change’ agenda, we are on the cusp of something happening with ramifications that no one has ever seen before.

Western governments’, specifically western Europe, North America (U.S-Canada) and Australia/New Zealand, are intentionally trying to lower economic activity to meet the intentional drop in energy production.

This is the core consequence of the Build Back Better agenda as promoted by the World Economic Forum.

Anyone who says there is a reference point to determine both the short-term and long-term consequences is lying. There is no precedent for nations’ collectively and intentionally trying to reduce economic activity.

https://theconservativetreehou...taking-it-seriously/

quote:

Originally posted by goose5:
From what I understand this is a much smaller package than the Build Back Better. I'm hearing they might just have to use their reconciliation bullet for the year to do this.

The bill also requires spending over time, specifically the next ten years. Legally, no Congress can bind the Congresses that succeed it if succeeding Congresses vote to do something different. I think that means that funding (and therefore the activity) doesn't occur over time unless the next (hopefully Republican-dominated, for whatever that may be worth) Congress votes to actually hand the money over for anything that doesn't get funded before next January.

quote:

The assurances given for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act are a continuation of a "lies, damned lies, and health care promises" strategy Democrats have been deploying for more than 60 years, starting with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society addenda — Medicare and Medicaid — to the Social Security Act.

One year later...
They subtly admit it had nothing to do with 'Inflation Reduction'

Inflation Reduction Act: How the climate law set a 'trillion-dollar shift' for EVs into motion

Here's how President Biden's landmark climate legislation is affecting electric vehicle makers and US consumers one year later.

The largest climate investment in US history has dramatically reshaped the EV landscape.

One year ago, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law, which set aside roughly $400 billion in federal funding for clean energy. Since then, carmakers and suppliers have announced more than $62 billion in investments in EVs, according to Bank of America research.

New clean energy projects announced have resulted in more than 86,000 reshoring and foreign direct investment manufacturing jobs while jobs related to EVs grew by 27%, more than 17 times that of gasoline and diesel vehicle jobs, according to data compiled by Bank of America.

"[There’s] something like a trillion-dollar shift from the federal government to the auto industry and the consumer," Tom Narayan, RBC Capital Markets lead global autos analyst, told Yahoo Finance. "All of these OEMs are trying to jump on this and capture and we're seeing that momentum already take place."

The largest climate investment in US history has dramatically reshaped the EV landscape.

One year ago, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law, which set aside roughly $400 billion in federal funding for clean energy. Since then, carmakers and suppliers have announced more than $62 billion in investments in EVs, according to Bank of America research.

New clean energy projects announced have resulted in more than 86,000 reshoring and foreign direct investment manufacturing jobs while jobs related to EVs grew by 27%, more than 17 times that of gasoline and diesel vehicle jobs, according to data compiled by Bank of America.

"[There’s] something like a trillion-dollar shift from the federal government to the auto industry and the consumer," Tom Narayan, RBC Capital Markets lead global autos analyst, told Yahoo Finance. "All of these OEMs are trying to jump on this and capture and we're seeing that momentum already take place."

Since the law’s passage, Hyundai has poured billions of dollars into two new gigafactories in Georgia to build electric vehicles. BMW has announced a $1 billion investment to retool its South Carolina facility for EV production, along with a $700 million investment to build an electric battery plant nearby. And earlier this year, Toyota upped its investment in its North Carolina battery plant to nearly $6 billion, making the Liberty facility the largest single economic development project commitment in the state’s history.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news...otion-155615359.html