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Obama to speak @ 1pm EDT

DeacMan, I'm not just talking about hiring overseas. I'm talking about all the different ways someone can invest money besides hiring an American worker. If an employer believes he can get a better return by putting $50K in the bank rather than hiring somebody, he should do it. The challenge is how make it more profitable to hire an American worker than other investment options.
 
Subsidizing the most profitable companies in history is one of the five stupidest ideas in board history.

What happens if oil prices drop? Do they get even more money?

If we subsidize companies who can afford to expand, do R&D, how do we tell other companies no?
 
You aren't really subsidizing by lowering repatriation tax rates.
 
ChrisL68 said:
You aren't really subsidizing by lowering repatriation tax rates.
Click to expand...

That's only one "incentive". The others are subsidies.

By the way, the concept of money being located in one place or another seems extremely outdated in the modern day.
 
PH - You're being demeaning for no reason because you completely misread my point. I already said up front that businesses measure risk vs. reward and of course they take incentives into consideration. My point is that tweaking the rewards without addressing risk is just artificial. We're having a conversation about what's best for the country, not what's best for the individual businessman getting a break.

Masking risk? It isn't a matter of "masking risk" but rather of providing incentive for people to take the risk. The incentives don't mask the risk. The risks are still there. The business people have to assess them for themselves. What the incentive does is make facing the risks more palatable. You could tell me you'd offer me no taxes on the income derived from a project forever and that incentive still might not make the project make sense to me. The capital still has to be risked. An honest assessment still has to take place that takes into account the impact of whatever incentive has been put on the table.

Will the five story building work? Is my neighbor right that the demand is real? Even if the demand is there, will rents hold up sufficiently to meet the needed financial objectives to make the project viable? I don't know. Neither does he for sure. But he does know he won't build a three story building but is willing to build a five story building if the government will just give him a variance. Someone else may measure the risk differently and build a three story building.

And local vs. Federal government is really meaningless to the overall issue. We want JOBS. We want the economy to move again. If a local government can provide an incentive to encourage capital investment, great. They should consider doing so.

Are the incentives permanent? How the hell do I know? We're talking general theory and you want to know whether each incentive will be permanent? That is rather pedantic of you.

What I do know is that the economy is sluggish and needs a kickstart. We tried to have the government collect money and then dole it out twice. It hasn't worked. So maybe the government should look at more ways to incent that huge slosh of privately held money to get to work.
 
ChrisL68 said:
You aren't really subsidizing by lowering repatriation tax rates.
Click to expand...

Chris, those were two seperate ideas. He want to subsidize oil companies to invest AND allow for repatriation at low/no taxes.

Each is a terrible idea.
 
PhDeac said:
That's only one "incentive". The others are subsidies.

By the way, the concept of money being located in one place or another seems extremely outdated in the modern day.
Click to expand...

Why are the others necessarily subsidies but this one is an incentive?

Further, a ton of time and effort and cost goes into moving money from one place to another - outdated as the concept may appear to you.
 
RJKarl said:
Chris, those were two seperate ideas. He want to subsidize oil companies to invest AND allow for repatriation at low/no taxes.

Each is a terrible idea.
Click to expand...

For starters I never endorsed any particular idea.

Second, an incentive need not take the form of a subsidy. It could be as simple as the government getting out of the way to permit something to occur. Whether I personally would approve of that tact could differ from situation to situation. But that may still move the jobs picture and the economy forward.

Third, please do explain, exactly, what ideas are "terrible" and why. I suppose we'll get a lecture about how there is no way to structure an incentive that won't somehow be abused to the point that it holds zero net positive value. :willynilly: "Ah, corporations are all evil. They must be stopped."
 
PhDeac said:
That's only one "incentive". The others are subsidies.

By the way, the concept of money being located in one place or another seems extremely outdated in the modern day.
Click to expand...

Subsidies are incentives. By definition.
 
All of them are incentives.

"Masking risks" or "making risks more palpatable" are the same things to me. You're trying to someone whose business is doing fine "take this government money and things will be less risky for you".

And if you can't even address the possibility that your incentives will become permanent, it's not a responsible idea. How does the government pull back incentives at the risk of lowering job growth or even risking unemployment rates? Once the magic handout genie is out of the bottle, it's hard to make him go back in.
 
DeacMan said:
For starters I never endorsed any particular idea.

Second, an incentive need not take the form of a subsidy. It could be as simple as the government getting out of the way to permit something to occur. Whether I personally would approve of that tact could differ from situation to situation. But that may still move the jobs picture and the economy forward.

Third, please do explain, exactly, what ideas are "terrible" and why. I suppose we'll get a lecture about how there is no way to structure an incentive that won't somehow be abused to the point that it holds zero net positive value. :willynilly: "Ah, corporations are all evil. They must be stopped."
Click to expand...


Let's deal with the insanely siplistic and BS assertion you made in the last sentence. As was shown on the buffet threat I neither think corporations or billionaires are "evil".

It's typical of you when challenged to say such BS.

There is NO need to "incentivize" oil companiers in any way at this point in time. They are making historic levels of profits. If they have to wait to drill too bad.

We shoudl be "incentivizing" people to get us AWAY from oil. It is expensive. It supports terrorist nations. it is inefficient. Finding and using it pollutes.

As stated multiple times, the last time there was a "tax holiday" to repatriate money from overseas it was a total scam.

Jobs were LOST not create in the companies who brought money back. If you want to give such a holiday, then the companies must use the money to hire people for the long-term or pay significant penalities.

allowing them to bring back the money wilth no strings is moronic.

LA Mayor Villaragosa just had an intersting idea about repatriating the money. Let the corporations bring bacvk the money if they put the money into an infrastructure bank bonds to repair the $2.2T in needs that we have.
 
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I love corporations and free enterprise and Im a stinky hippie liberal. I like driving my Honda with gas refined from Exxon oil, I like to hear my hippie rocknroll on my iPhone, I like my Yamaha drums and my smelly chuck taylor all-stars. I like wine shipped to me from California on a big-ass Mack truck. I like to eat locally grown meat at my friend's restaurant.

But if they have healthy profits and are sitting on more cash then they have in 20 years, I don't want to give them tax money. It makes no sense. There are too many other needs for that money. Perhaps incentives for sectors that are struggling but have a real ROI for the country - like education and job training, scientific innovation and R&D, etc. You know, so we can compete with other nations for years to come to ensure economic stability.

Didn't we used to do that, during the cold war? spend gov money on R&d and science to beat the Reds? why aren't we doing it now to beat the chinese and indians?
 
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PhDeac said:
All of them are incentives.

"Masking risks" or "making risks more palpatable" are the same things to me. You're trying to someone whose business is doing fine "take this government money and things will be less risky for you".

And if you can't even address the possibility that your incentives will become permanent, it's not a responsible idea. How does the government pull back incentives at the risk of lowering job growth or even risking unemployment rates? Once the magic handout genie is out of the bottle, it's hard to make him go back in.
Click to expand...


Masking risks implies you are somehow hiding them. The government can't hide a market risk. And, again, it isn't by definition a matter of "take this government money". You are thereby implying the government has to proactively "give" me the money - physically hand it to me. Why is that the case necessarily? I've already given you one real life example. A 22 Million dollar project in my neighborhood. What hangs in the balance? The government giving a zoning variance that will lead to increased property tax revenues for the government. How is that handing out "government money"? Personally, I hope he's denied the variance because I don't want a five story building just up the street. But I also can see why the government would pass the variance. They stand to benefit by doing so.

And you can come up with plenty of incentives that are temporary in nature. I'm about to watch a local incentive expire on a project my company engaged in over a decade ago. There's one genie that is going back in the bottle. Things change all the time. Tax rates go up and down. Programs come and go. Rules tighten and loosen.
 
WakeandBake said:
I love corporations and free enterprise and Im a stinky hippie liberal. I like driving my Honda with gas refined from Exxon oil, I like to hear my hippie rocknroll on my iPhone, I like my Yamaha drums and my smelly chuck taylor all-stars. I like wine shipped to me from California on a big-ass Mack truck. I like to eat locally grown meat at my friend's restaurant.

But if they have healthy profits and are sitting on more cash then they have in 20 years, I don't want to give them tax money. It makes no sense. There are too many other needs for that money. Perhaps incentives for sectors that are struggling but have a real ROI for the country - like education and job training, scientific innovation and R&D, etc. You know, so we can compete with other nations for years to come to ensure economic stability.

Didn't we used to do that, during the cold war? spend gov money on R&d and science to beat the Reds? why aren't we doing it now to beat the chinese and indians?
Click to expand...

In other words, you'd encourage private investment in certain areas via incentives.
 
If we don't provide incentives for repatriation, they will keep the money overseas and we won't get tax dollar one.

That'll show them!!!!!
 
Again, you're talking local, not federal.

What you're saying is that the government should put the rewards up in front of the risk in order to incent businesses. Call it whatever you want. I think we both agree that's what you're saying.
 
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