Thursday, September 12, 2024
U.S. Public Wants Stricter Gun Laws
The charts above reflect the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between September 8th and 10th of a nationwide sample of 1,626 adults, with a 3.3 point margin of error.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
57% Say Trump Campaign Messages Not Based On Facts
The chart above reflects the results of the AP / NORC Poll -- done between July 29th and August 8th of a nationwide sample of 1,019 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.
Two New North Carolina Polls Show Harris Up By 3 Points
The WRAL News Poll was conducted between September 4th and 7th of 900 North Carolina adults, and has a 4.9 point margin of error.
The Quinnipiac University Poll was conducted between September 4th and 8th of 940 likely North Carolina voters, and has a 3.2 point margin of error.
Tariffs Are A Tax On Americans - Not Foreign Nations
While campaigning in the 2016 election, Donald Trump said he would built a wall between the United States and Mexico - and Mexico would pay for the wall. It was a ridiculous assertion, and it did not come true. Only a few miles of that wall was ever built, and that was paid for by U.S. taxpayers - NOT Mexico.
Now he is trying to fool the American people again. He wants to continue his tax breaks - 82% of which went to the rich and super-rich. And he wants to pay for it by imposing tariffs on foreign goods entering the United States by between 10% and 60%.
He's upset because Democrats are telling the truth about his tariffs - that it just amount to a big tax on American consumers. He keeps saying that foreign countries will pay the tariff (tax) and not Americans.
He's either blatantly lying or he doesn't understand how basic economics work - or both!
Consider how a tariff works. The tariff is not imposed until the foreign goods enter this country (not when they are shipped). And who pays the tariff? That would be the American company that ordered the goods. And that company would recover the money they spent on a tariff by raising the price of goods when they sell them to the American consumer.
That means if a 10% tariff is imposed, then the imported goods will cost the U.S. consumer an extra 10% in price.
Now, a Republican might tell you to just buy products made or grown in the United States. But that is almost impossible to do. About 40% to 60% of the fruits and vegetables in our grocery stores are imported, and the price for them will be inflated. Also, there are many products that are not made in the United States (like TV's). If you buy one of these, the price will be inflated by the amount of the tariff.
Trump would like you to believe his tariff's would be paid by foreign countries - but that isn't true. His tariffs are nothing more than a tax on Americans - a tax that will make the already too high inflation even worse.
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
New Poll Shows Blacks Are Solidly Behind Kamala Harris
The charts above are from the Washington Post / Ipsos Poll -- done between August 23rd and September 3rd of a nationwide sample of 924 Black registered voters, with a 3.4 point margin of error.
Trump Has A Woman Problem - And Vance Doesn't Help
Robert Reich comments on Trump's problem with women. Here is part of what he says:
Donald Trump has a yuge woman problem. Below, I first examine why; then discuss how women are likely to vote; and, finally, put Trumpism in the context of authoritarianism and fascism.
1. Why Trump has a woman problem
Not just because he’s had many wives and sexual escapades.
Not just because he had an affair with an adult film star soon after his wife gave birth.
Not just because of his crude references to women: “stars can do anything with women … grab ‘em by the pu**y;” a female interviewer “had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever;” women are “crazy,” “unhinged,” “nasty.”
Or his recent repost of old photographs of Harris and Hillary Clinton followed by the comment: “Funny how blowjobs impacted both their careers differently” (referring to Harris’s once dating San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern).
There’s also the issue of abortion. Trump was dead against all abortions in 2016. He put three justices on the Supreme Court who joined Justice Samuel Alito in reversing Roe v. Wade, with the result that one out of three women of childbearing age now lives in a state where abortion is effectively banned.
Swing states Nevada and Arizona have abortion-related ballot measures this fall, which may fuel turnout among independent women.
Beyond all this are the dozen or more allegations of Trump sexually harassing, abusing, and, yes, raping women. . . .
Trump’s woman problem has grown even worse by his picking JD Vance for vice president.
In an interview from 2020, Vance agreed with a podcast host who said having grandmothers help raise children is “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female.”
When confronted about his 2021 reference that women leaders in America are “a bunch of childless cat ladies,” Vance told Megyn Kelly: “Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats.”
Vance has criticized divorce even for women suffering domestic violence. When “people can shift spouses like they change their underwear” it doesn’t work out “for the kids of those marriages.”
2. How women are likely to vote
There are 3 million more women in America than men. And they almost always vote in larger numbers than men. In 2020, 74 percent of adult U.S. women said they voted, vs. 71 percent of men.
That split has held true for more than 40 years — in every presidential election beginning in 1980, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.
There’s also a big split in voter registration: 89 million women told census surveyors they were registered in 2020, vs. 79 million men.
The 2024 election may set the record for women voting — and voting for the Democratic candidate for president. As I noted at the outset, the ABC News/Ipsos poll released September 1 found Harris leading Trump among women by 54 percent to 41 percent.
The gender chasm is even larger among women under 30 — an overwhelming 67 percent of whom plan to vote for Harris, while just 29 percent back Trump, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.
A Quinnipiac Poll in mid-August found a similar gender chasm among likely voters in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania: Women backed Harris 54 percent to 41 percent, while men went for Trump, 49 percent to 42 percent. (Overall, Harris was up 48 percent to 45 percent.)
3. Trumpism and male dominance
Trump’s world view is organized around male dominance. For Trump, as in most authoritarian and fascist states, anything that challenges the traditional heroic male roles of protector, provider, and controller of the family is considered a threat to the social order.
Last week, Trump’s new ally, billionaire Elon Musk — whom Trump wants to run a “government efficiency commission” — promoted a theory that advocates a “Republic” led exclusively by “high-status males” with “high testosterone levels.”
Friends, we’re close to The Handmaid’s Tale territory.
Hell Freezes Over And Pigs Are Flying
Monday, September 09, 2024
The Facts Vs. Trump's Ridiculous Lies
The charts are from stevenrattner.com.
Donald Trump has no regard for the truth, and that is evident in his campaign. His campaign is full of lies.
He tells us that he presided over a great economy - much better that the economy under President Biden. Of course, the opposite is true. In both GDP growth and job creation, Trump's numbers trail Biden's - even when the effect of COVID is figured in.
He tells us that his presidency was better formal production. But in every year of his presidency, there was a negative on oil exports (exports minus imports). It is only in the Biden Administration that exports were finally greater than imports.
He tells us that violent crime was low during his term, and has exploded during Biden's term. But violent crime has been lower in every year under Biden than in any year under Trump.
And he wants to blame undocumented immigrants for most crime in the country. But undocumented immigrants commit less crimes than legal immigrants - and far less than U.S.-born citizens.
The Super-Rich Don't Pay Their Fair Share Of Taxes
The chart above is frustrating. And it has not changed since 2018. The super rich still pay a smaller tax rate than the bottom 50% (who are basically living paycheck to paycheck) when all taxes are considered. That not an equitable tax system.
Robert Reich explains why this is so, and what needs to be done. Here is part of what he has written:
I’m hoping Harris sticks with Biden on Biden’s most important tax proposal: A 25 percent minimum tax on Americans worth more than $100 million. This 25 percent tax would apply to a combination of their regular income and their unrealized capital gains.
It would raise roughly $500 billion in tax revenue over a decade, according to the Treasury Department.
Biden would also tax unrealized gains at death for those holding more than $5 million worth of assets.
Why is Biden’s 25 percent minimum billionaire’s tax so important?
Consider Warren Buffett. Several years ago, Buffett made a claim that would become famous. He said that he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary, thanks to the many loopholes and deductions that benefit the wealthy.
The 400 wealthiest Americans today still pay a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state, and local taxes — than any other income group, according to newly released data.
According to Forbes, Buffett now has $149.9 billion in wealth. On the conservative assumption that the rate of return on his wealth is 5 percent, Buffett’s real pre-tax income last year — his share of his company Berkshire Hathaway’s profits — was roughly $7.5 billion. Yet Buffet paid an effective income tax rate of less than 1 percent.
How did Buffett accomplish this? His increasing wealth, consisting of shares in his company Berkshire Hathaway, is all in unrealized capital gains. One share now costs some $715,778 — more than 60 times what it sold for in 1992.
To finance his personal lifestyle, Buffett has needed to sell only a few shares each year. By selling just 20 shares, for example, he moves $14 million over to his personal bank account. He then pays tax on the small amount of capital gains he realized by selling 20 shares.
Alternatively, he can finance his lifestyle by taking out tax-free loans backed by the stock he owns.
This is why merely raising the top marginal income tax rate won’t affect Buffett’s (or Bezos’s or Zuckerberg’s or Musk’s) tax bills. They don’t have much taxable income in the first place. It’s why the important action is found in capital gains, especially unrealized — that is, uncashed — gains.
Under current law, if they hold most of their wealth until they die, their heirs can inherit it without paying a dime of capital gains taxes. That’s because it was never cashed out.
Here’s the thing: According to the tax code, the basis from which capital gains are calculated — the original price of the assets — is wiped out on death. Instead, the basis automatically rises to the asset’s current market value.
Which is why the United States is rapidly moving toward an aristocracy of dynastic wealth.
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