https://reason.com/2024/10/16/donald...rate-promises/
"Trump fans applauded when he said he'll eliminate taxes on tips. Then Harris proposed that, too. Her audience applauded. Trump then proposed not taxing overtime. More applause.
. . .
"No one likes tipping," says Schrager, "but all of a sudden, you'll have to pay tips for everything.…More people will be paid in tips."
I want lower taxes, but awarding specific exemptions to certain people doesn't just let some of us keep more of our money, it tells workers and employers to change their behavior.
"If you're a restaurant owner, you need chefs, hostesses, managers," says Schrager. "All of a sudden, one group of your employees isn't paying taxes, and the rest are. Suddenly, it would be very hard to hire anyone who's not a server."
. . .
"Why such economic ignorance?
"Look at Kamala's team," says Schrager. "Most of her core advisers are lawyers, not economists."
That last point is a bit unfair. Economists are often just as simultaneously dumb but certain they're right as lawyers. They're only slightly more respectable because, unlike lawyers, they're aware of the law of unintended consequences and don't propose as the solution to every problem, "We need to pass a law!"
BUT, in defense of Harris and Trump, aren't they only doing as shrewd Romans would? Biden kicked this can of jubilee open in the worst way a few years ago with his vote-purchasing student loan forgiveness promise.*
If one gifts debt discharge to the kid who amassed debt he or she cannot repay, how can one not give a similar benefit to those who did not take such a chance? (An often ill-informed risk, BTW, to major in a subject no employers value.) Harris and Trump are handcuffed here. Once one gets into the game of buying votes, and starts picking who gets economic benefits, well, sooner or later, everyone must get a benefit.
But let's not stop there. Wall Street didn't like high rates very much. And those poor buggers were suffering, what with the market only up over 40k and all. So the Fed prematurely cut rates a fat 50 points.
That's not Greenspan GWB-era recklessness, of course, as Powell has been measured and incredibly conservative in his moves thus far. No, to get back to dumb W-era policies, Harris decided to dust off this classic: "Everyone needs to buy a home!"
Never mind that Trump's doubling of the standard deduction already helped the middle classes to save money to buy a home. Never mind that one of the biggest lessons of 2008 was that having people tied to homes hobbled labor flexibility by making it impossible for millions to move to other areas with better opportunities. And never mind that we are entering a time where labor's ability to move is becoming increasingly important.
Forget all this and let's go back to 1950, MAGA's mythical Camelot, and sing that same tired song: The best way to encourage wealth creation is for people to buy homes.
What will giving $25k loans to everybody to buy homes do? Well, it'll make all of us homeowners $25k wealthier on paper overnight by driving up house prices. It'll incentivize private equity to grab the motherlode of that money building shit quality multi-units all over the place. And when the cascade of defaults that always follows loose lending inevitably comes, Schwarzman, Fink, Mnuchin, and the rest of the parasites will form vulture funds to buy the loans and/or properties and turn them into giant rental revenue streams. Just like they did after 2008.
Everybody gets a pony! With Stage Four cancer. Ride it as much as you can before its legs fall off!
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*He probably regretted it immediately the morning after the election, where it was apparent he had won by such a margin he didn't need to have made such a promise... particularly given it only helped him in blue areas where he already had the race in the bag.
