Fifth Avenue Forum

Buyback activity hit a record $1.1 trillion last year and could surpass that level this year.

I’m against buybacks, I don’t want to outlaw them, but massively dissuade them from being used.

Confirmed.

Good idea.

Yep. If you want our economy to tank.

Why would you want to punish investment? What goes through someone’s head that makes them believe that is a smart thing to do?

Incentivize investment and incentivize companies to give to those areas. Forcefully taking it away will only bring negative consequences.

investment in what? Companies are parking trillions of dollars overseas because there's nothing to invest in.

Almost 1 trillion dollars has been repatriated since the tax law passed. Corporations were thought to have around 2.5 trillion held overseas.

Isn't that just corporate balance sheet cash though?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-offs ... 3U20120722

I was thinking more of this stash as the type of capital that is not being used to invest in the market place.

Give them an incentive to bring the cash back.

I’d rather give tax breaks to companies for having an average wage(excluding executive pay) above a certain level. The tax break becomes higher and higher as you exceed it.

So we'll drive more companies to automation, because the three techs that maintain the machine are going to make the same amount as the ten people that were actually laboring to perform assembly. Average wage increases, more people unemployed, company keeps more cash to hand out to their shareholders.

Don’t worry. There is already an answer in the works for that. Take Oregon, for example, which camped up the minimum wage and now wants to limit things like self-checkout because mandated minimum wage increases are a natural catalyst for automation.

Give them an incentive to bring the cash back.

This is global, there's no tax incentive the US could impose that would alter this situation. This is a product of capital returns exceeding economic growth.

Ban on flavored e-cigarettes coming.

Wildly stupid, yet I think this was coming regardless of who was in office. The state of Michigan just banned them as well.

Explain to me how you can ban flavored e-cigarettes, but not, ya know...FCKING CIGARETTES?! I am vehemently against both even though I think cigarettes should be sin taxed into oblivion, but the hypocrisy is ridiculous.

People who think spanking is retrograde using the same concept on businesses that don't act right.

Spanking works. The loss of corporal punishment was a major factor in creating today's entitled snowflakes...

Umm... how would giving corporations a tax break for possibly raising wages, cause them to massively increase automation?

Companies just can’t automate everything. Sure you could lose the jobs that are already being automated faster, but it wouldn’t be a massive issue.

You can counter some layoffs by giving tax penalties if you are still operating at a significant profit percentage.

You're adding cost to employ the human laborer (through increased tax burden versus automation or as @Ted mentioned through increasing the minimum wage). That means you're tipping the scales and automating some jobs that wouldn't be under the current rules of the game. Is that 5,000 jobs or 500,000 jobs? I don't know. The majority will however be low skill, lower pay positions in an economy that has better unemployment numbers but is just now getting back to same % of Americans living in poverty as before the recession.

I don't know how to fix that, but I'm increasingly under the belief that it's going to take a major change to correct it rather than baby steps.

People who think spanking is retrograde using the same concept on businesses that don't act right.

Spanking works. The loss of corporal punishment was a major factor in creating today's entitled snowflakes...

Despite numerous studies showing permanent psychological damage.
I'm not going to tell people how to parent their children, especially because just between my three kids they need very different approaches. I'm sure there are kids where the benefit of a spanking outweighs the damage. But they should weigh the cost-benefit equation actually believing scientists as much about corporal punishment as they should vaccinations.

People who think spanking is retrograde using the same concept on businesses that don't act right.

Spanking works. The loss of corporal punishment was a major factor in creating today's entitled snowflakes...

Despite numerous studies showing permanent psychological damage.
I'm not going to tell people how to parent their children, especially because just between my three kids they need very different approaches. I'm sure there are kids where the benefit of a spanking outweighs the damage. But they should weigh the cost-benefit equation actually believing scientists as much about corporal punishment as they should vaccinations.

And I'm not telling people how to parent their children, especially because I don't have any. Just pointing out that Freddy was overgeneralizing...

I'm finally getting a handle on what McCabe did that is getting him indicted. Very similar to the Comey firing, in that they are getting punished for making improper decisions that hurt Clinton's campaign.

So, yeah, **** him, he was a coward. I think both Comey and McCabe assumed Clinton would win, I bet 99% of their decision making process was based on assuming that the republican congress would spend all of 2017 investigating the clinton email server and the decision to not charge.

Umm... how would giving corporations a tax break for possibly raising wages, cause them to massively increase automation?

Companies just can’t automate everything. Sure you could lose the jobs that are already being automated faster, but it wouldn’t be a massive issue.

You can counter some layoffs by giving tax penalties if you are still operating at a significant profit percentage.

You're adding cost to employ the human laborer (through increased tax burden versus automation or as @Ted mentioned through increasing the minimum wage). That means you're tipping the scales and automating some jobs that wouldn't be under the current rules of the game. Is that 5,000 jobs or 500,000 jobs? I don't know. The majority will however be low skill, lower pay positions in an economy that has better unemployment numbers but is just now getting back to same % of Americans living in poverty as before the recession.

I don't know how to fix that, but I'm increasingly under the belief that it's going to take a major change to correct it rather than baby steps.

My proposal is not increasing the tax burden on companies that are not above a certain threshold, just reducing their current tax burden if they go above that threshold. Don’t give your employees a raise, your tax burden is the same as it is now, give your employees a raise, maybe you get 1.5 back in taxes (up to a certain point) for every dollar more you give your employees.

You can look at it as not an increase, but if your competition increases their automation and gets the tax break you're at a disadvantage.
It's a possible downside, but I'll grant that I'm not an economist and even if I were I'd have to be very deep into the accounting of a particular industry to formulate an educated guess and that would vary based on the scale of the breaks, yada yada yada.

The point I was bringing up was just that the law of unintended consequences may bite you in the rear in the same manner as it can with increasing minimum wage or any other method that doesn't de-emphasize money at the top of the chain or dividends to shareholders. That's not to say that starting at the top like Warren wants to doesn't have its own myriad of unintended consequences.

Well... the media finished outing the guy...

I'm finally getting a handle on what McCabe did that is getting him indicted. Very similar to the Comey firing, in that they are getting punished for making improper decisions that hurt Clinton's campaign.

So, yeah, **** him, he was a coward. I think both Comey and McCabe assumed Clinton would win, I bet 99% of their decision making process was based on assuming that the republican congress would spend all of 2017 investigating the clinton email server and the decision to not charge.

Not sure what actions by McCabe you're referencing here (the texts?). But as regards Comey's decision tree didn't he say as much in Congressional testimony?

California bans private prisons – including Ice detention centers

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ration-ice

California bans private prisons – including Ice detention centers

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ration-ice

yeah, who wants this loopy state to have fair voting power anyways

6 out of how many millions. Maybe don't use black market vapes...

Affirmative.

Study Finds That the Vast Majority of Respiratory Diseases in Vapers Are Linked to Illegal THC Products
https://reason.com/2019/09/09/study-fin ... -products/

So actually someone who has no idea about economics and stuff, why actually is that a bad idea? CoL goes up, and raises haven't followed suit.

Can you give me the dumbed-down version of why it's a bad idea? What we have now, doesn't really seem that great either?

Seizing corporate profits would crush the price of stocks, if not render them worthless. Why buy shares in a company if the profits the company earns will just be seized and redistributed by the government? It would gut people's retirement accounts, which for most folks are heavily invested in stocks. It would also attack the financial reserves and endowments of a lot of charities and nonprofits. Those sorts of entities also invest in order to make money. Finally, it would also cripple the ability of companies to raise capital buy selling stock on the equities markets.

To use an analogy, let's say a hamburger costs a dollar. How much would you pay for the exact hamburger when someone else is going to eat 90% of it before it gets to your plate?

I'm finally getting a handle on what McCabe did that is getting him indicted. Very similar to the Comey firing, in that they are getting punished for making improper decisions that hurt Clinton's campaign.

So, yeah, **** him, he was a coward. I think both Comey and McCabe assumed Clinton would win, I bet 99% of their decision making process was based on assuming that the republican congress would spend all of 2017 investigating the clinton email server and the decision to not charge.

Not sure what actions by McCabe you're referencing here (the texts?). But as regards Comey's decision tree didn't he say as much in Congressional testimony?

McCabe leaked to the wsj that the Clinton foundation probe was open or proceeding or something to dispute some bs that alleged he **** it down. Point is, both of them broke protocol to combat any notion that they were somehow benefiting Clinton. As opposed to just staying out of it because it didn’t matter, they would be accused of such things regardless if Clinton won

Seizing corporate profits would crush the price of stocks

A long overdue correction to an extremely overvalued market...

Why buy shares in a company if the profits the company earns will just be seized and redistributed by the government?

I thought that was already happening.

To use an analogy, let's say a hamburger costs a dollar. How much would you pay for the exact hamburger when someone else is going to eat 90% of it before it gets to your plate?

If all hamburgers are now 10% sized, whatever the price is - or don't eat a hamburger.

Troubling? Only that the doctor had to go through this.

The patient had a written living will requesting it and had progressed to a condition of advanced dementia - to the point of not recognizing her own reflection. Plant/grow.

Also:

Seizing corporate profits would crush the price of stocks

A long overdue correction to an extremely overvalued market...

Why buy shares in a company if the profits the company earns will just be seized and redistributed by the government?

I thought that was already happening.

To use an analogy, let's say a hamburger costs a dollar. How much would you pay for the exact hamburger when someone else is going to eat 90% of it before it gets to your plate?

If all hamburgers are now 10% sized, whatever the price is - or don't eat a hamburger.

So you want a shitty standard of living and to never retire?

A long overdue correction to an extremely overvalued market...

There's a difference between people thinking that something is of greater value than it is, or otherwise miscalculating the its value, and the government taking action to actually and concretely lower the value of something. You might think a certain used car is worth $10,000. I might think that car is only worth $8,000. We each have a different subjective perception of value. But if someone comes along and smashes the windows and keys the paint, there has been an objective reduction in value.

or don't eat a hamburger.

What else are you going to invest in that will provide a reasonable rate of return? Or would you be planning to never retire?