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General Ohio University Discussion/Alumni Events Topic
Topic: Does Dewine know something that we don’t. Was the MAC tournament a significant risk?
Page: 7 of 7
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BillyTheCat
3/26/2020 12:01 PM
Robert Fox wrote:expand_more
You can't separate "spending" from the Dems. You and I both know that. Congress holds the purse strings.
I've not once tried to separate that spending from the Dems is different than spending from the GOP. The two differences I do make, is deficit spending when in a time of need is a necessary evil (regardless of party). Second difference is one party does NOT pretend to be fiscally conservative. Interestingly though, in the past 40 years that party that is known for spending, actually reduces the deficit. That is a simple statistical fact.
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Robert Fox
3/26/2020 12:54 PM
BillyTheCat wrote:expand_more
The two differences I do make, is deficit spending when in a time of need is a necessary evil (regardless of party).
That is true in Keynesian economics.

I won't touch the second part because I honestly don't know the answer. I do strongly suspect that the "facts" are clouded by the reporters' ideological bias. For example, during the Reagan years, who's responsible for spending, Reagan or Congress?

Where you sit politically will probably inform your answer.
Last Edited: 3/26/2020 12:56:52 PM by Robert Fox
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L.C.
3/26/2020 1:03 PM
BillyTheCat wrote:expand_more
You can't separate "spending" from the Dems. You and I both know that. Congress holds the purse strings.
I've not once tried to separate that spending from the Dems is different than spending from the GOP. The two differences I do make, is deficit spending when in a time of need is a necessary evil (regardless of party). Second difference is one party does NOT pretend to be fiscally conservative. Interestingly though, in the past 40 years that party that is known for spending, actually reduces the deficit. That is a simple statistical fact.

Right or wrong, my observation is that when a party controls Congress they act like their reputation. When they control the Presidency, they act contrary to it. Thus, the worst of all possible worlds is a Republican President with Democrats controlling Congress, and the best is a Democrat President with Republicans controlling Congress.
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
3/26/2020 1:44 PM
Get why so much of the focus here is on spending and the debt, after all, 2 trillion is a big number.

But I feel like the focus there misses a key point: the reason so much money has to be spent propping up companies in an event like this (or banks the last go 'round) is the direct result of failed policy. And not policy that can be blamed on one party or another, I'm talking about longstanding policy.

For instance, we have a national retirement system (sans Social Security) that relies almost entirely on the performance of the stock market. As a result, choosing not to bail out AIG in 2008 or the half dozen industries that received bailouts this time around necessarily becomes a decision to wipe out pension plans and drastically reduce the value of 401ks.

Likewise, we have a health insurance system that's linked to employment. So if you don't contribute huge sums of money to employers to maintain payroll in cases like this, uninsured rates skyrocket in the midst of a health crisis.

Even the unemployment system, and LC and I discussed, is funded by employers and not at a rate that's sufficient to cover what's needed.

There's plenty of money to fund a decent unemployment system, a public healthcare option, or a more robust social security system. We choose to put the money elsewhere. Maybe that's the right decision -- it's basically impossible to unpack and know with any uncertainty, but I do always find the notion that we simply can't afford such things to be misguided. We can't afford them because we choose, consistently, to spend on other things.
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BillyTheCat
3/26/2020 3:13 PM
Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:expand_more
Does anybody have a good resource about what's actually in this bill? Have had trouble finding anything super useful.
https://apple.news/AYQxQdvxDShaoqKuQvg-msw
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BillyTheCat
3/26/2020 3:21 PM
Robert Fox wrote:expand_more
The two differences I do make, is deficit spending when in a time of need is a necessary evil (regardless of party).
That is true in Keynesian economics.

I won't touch the second part because I honestly don't know the answer. I do strongly suspect that the "facts" are clouded by the reporters' ideological bias. For example, during the Reagan years, who's responsible for spending, Reagan or Congress?

Where you sit politically will probably inform your answer.
Traditionally the era goes with the President, like Harry S Truman said, the Buck Stops Here. History also judges the reigns of Speakers of the House. One thing that is not to debate is trickle down economics started with Reagan and has been a GOP philosophy since. I am a strict fiscal conservative, and I have a real problem when the GOP touts this fiscal restraint, policy of tax cuts and paying for them through growth. It’s simply not happening. It’s not how you run a household budget, a business or a country. I love when people see my disagreement that the GOP is not a fiscally conservative group as me being a liberal or biased by the media. My voter registration and primary ballots are all public record, been a republican and for a couple decades active in the party even serving as a delegate in 1996.
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L.C.
3/26/2020 8:12 PM
BillyTheCat wrote:expand_more
Traditionally the era goes with the President, like Harry S Truman said, the Buck Stops Here. History also judges the reigns of Speakers of the House. One thing that is not to debate is trickle down economics started with Reagan and has been a GOP philosophy since. I am a strict fiscal conservative, and I have a real problem when the GOP touts this fiscal restraint, policy of tax cuts and paying for them through growth. It’s simply not happening. It’s not how you run a household budget, a business or a country. I love when people see my disagreement that the GOP is not a fiscally conservative group as me being a liberal or biased by the media. My voter registration and primary ballots are all public record, been a republican and for a couple decades active in the party even serving as a delegate in 1996.

As far as tax cuts leading to additional revenue, under some circumstances it can, and in other situations it doesn't. What can't be debated, however, is that over the last 60 years the US has had a wide variety of tax policies. They have had tax rates with very high top brackets, and tax rates with low top rates. They have had tax policies with big standard deductions and few deductions, and others with small standard deductions and many itemized deductions. Amazingly, almost all roads have led to the exact same result. Year in, and year out, the US collects between 16 and 18% of GDP in Federal taxes. It is interesting to note that they did not fall after the Reagan cuts, and rose steadily for the next fifteen years. They did, however, fall after all the tax cuts since 2000. Here's a chart:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

Tax collections tend to be higher in bull markets when people are selling stocks at a profit, and lower during economic downturns. It is true that tax receipts were unusually low during most of the last ten years, however. Still, if you know in advance that tax receipts will run about 17%, and you have a federal budget that systematically spends over 20%, do you have a taxing problem or a spending problem?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S

As far as general tax policy, I have long believed that you should tax what you want less of. If you want people to work less, tax earnings. If you want people to spend less, tax sales. If you want people to drive less, tax gasoline. If you want property to have lower value, tax property. If you want less pollution, tax pollution. If you want less people to smoke, tax cigarettes.

As far as this stimulus bill, I guess it is just the first part, and the total will be $6T. It makes me sick to think of the lobbiests getting rich off this. It's like a bunch of fat pigs feeding at the trough. The US can recover from the coronavirus. The US can recover from the business shutdowns. I just don't see the US recovering from the raping of the economy for $6T. So, yes, my share will be $46,500. I've never gotten a penny from any other stimulus, and I don't expect to this time, either. I guess it's my fault for not paying a lobbiest and standing with my hand out. I'll get by. I cut my pay to $0 so that the money I have can go to employees, and my pay will stay there until it's over. I'll just work harder to make up the difference, I guess, but it totally sucks. I'm just going to turn off the news for a few days. It makes me want to puke.
Last Edited: 3/26/2020 8:38:14 PM by L.C.
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
3/27/2020 9:50 AM
L.C. wrote:expand_more
As far as this stimulus bill, I guess it is just the first part, and the total will be $6T. It makes me sick to think of the lobbiests getting rich off this. It's like a bunch of fat pigs feeding at the trough. The US can recover from the coronavirus. The US can recover from the business shutdowns. I just don't see the US recovering from the raping of the economy for $6T. So, yes, my share will be $46,500. I've never gotten a penny from any other stimulus, and I don't expect to this time, either. I guess it's my fault for not paying a lobbiest and standing with my hand out. I'll get by. I cut my pay to $0 so that the money I have can go to employees, and my pay will stay there until it's over. I'll just work harder to make up the difference, I guess, but it totally sucks. I'm just going to turn off the news for a few days. It makes me want to puke.
If this bill passes, be sure to pay attention to whether or not your business is eligible for the social security deferral. If that applies to us, the 6.2% savings comes out to slightly over 30k per week. Basically acts as an interest free cash infusion. It's the part of all of this that's most exciting for my business, for sure.
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Mike Johnson
3/27/2020 10:13 AM
This morning's NYT includes a 2-page article on how the stimulus bill has wended its way through congress. Insightful to be sure. Also shares a bit of humor: to wit, Mnuchin and Schumur have been spending so much time huddling together that they began calling each other Steven and Chuck.
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Mike Johnson
3/27/2020 10:22 AM
BillyTheCat wrote:expand_more
The two differences I do make, is deficit spending when in a time of need is a necessary evil (regardless of party).
That is true in Keynesian economics.

I won't touch the second part because I honestly don't know the answer. I do strongly suspect that the "facts" are clouded by the reporters' ideological bias. For example, during the Reagan years, who's responsible for spending, Reagan or Congress?

Where you sit politically will probably inform your answer.
Traditionally the era goes with the President, like Harry S Truman said, the Buck Stops Here. History also judges the reigns of Speakers of the House. One thing that is not to debate is trickle down economics started with Reagan and has been a GOP philosophy since. I am a strict fiscal conservative, and I have a real problem when the GOP touts this fiscal restraint, policy of tax cuts and paying for them through growth. It’s simply not happening. It’s not how you run a household budget, a business or a country. I love when people see my disagreement that the GOP is not a fiscally conservative group as me being a liberal or biased by the media. My voter registration and primary ballots are all public record, been a republican and for a couple decades active in the party even serving as a delegate in 1996.
I first became eligible to vote more than 50 years ago while serving in Korea. The Army made it easy for soldiers to vote. With that election and until 2016, although I didn't always vote straight ticket, I voted for Republican candidates for president. In 2016, in considering Trump's checkered business career, I couldn't bring myself to vote for him. Nor could I vote for Clinton whose dishonesty - in particular the time she eased from an Army copter and falsely asserted that she had come under enemy fire with rounds pinging off the fuselage - had cost her credibility. But I didn't want to forego my right to vote. What I did would have caused my late wife Lynne to grin; I voted for a 3rd party candidate, Dr. Jill Stein. (Lynne would have grinned because twice in years past I had teased her for voting for 3rd party candidates.)

My Republican leanings started tilting away during the second George Bush's presidency. It wasn't so much his launching the Iraq war - a disaster as it turned out - but the hard, inescapable fact that he went to the 8th years of his presidency before exercising his first veto of a spending bill.

Had Ohio's March 17 voting not been postponed, it would have been my first voting experience as an Independent. Yes, as the Board of Elections advised me, in that voting, as an Independent I could have voted only on issues. Come November will be my first opportunity to begin voting as an Independent.
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BillyTheCat
3/27/2020 4:40 PM
L.C. wrote:expand_more
Traditionally the era goes with the President, like Harry S Truman said, the Buck Stops Here. History also judges the reigns of Speakers of the House. One thing that is not to debate is trickle down economics started with Reagan and has been a GOP philosophy since. I am a strict fiscal conservative, and I have a real problem when the GOP touts this fiscal restraint, policy of tax cuts and paying for them through growth. It’s simply not happening. It’s not how you run a household budget, a business or a country. I love when people see my disagreement that the GOP is not a fiscally conservative group as me being a liberal or biased by the media. My voter registration and primary ballots are all public record, been a republican and for a couple decades active in the party even serving as a delegate in 1996.

As far as tax cuts leading to additional revenue, under some circumstances it can, and in other situations it doesn't. What can't be debated, however, is that over the last 60 years the US has had a wide variety of tax policies. They have had tax rates with very high top brackets, and tax rates with low top rates. They have had tax policies with big standard deductions and few deductions, and others with small standard deductions and many itemized deductions. Amazingly, almost all roads have led to the exact same result. Year in, and year out, the US collects between 16 and 18% of GDP in Federal taxes. It is interesting to note that they did not fall after the Reagan cuts, and rose steadily for the next fifteen years. They did, however, fall after all the tax cuts since 2000. Here's a chart:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

Tax collections tend to be higher in bull markets when people are selling stocks at a profit, and lower during economic downturns. It is true that tax receipts were unusually low during most of the last ten years, however. Still, if you know in advance that tax receipts will run about 17%, and you have a federal budget that systematically spends over 20%, do you have a taxing problem or a spending problem?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S

As far as general tax policy, I have long believed that you should tax what you want less of. If you want people to work less, tax earnings. If you want people to spend less, tax sales. If you want people to drive less, tax gasoline. If you want property to have lower value, tax property. If you want less pollution, tax pollution. If you want less people to smoke, tax cigarettes.

As far as this stimulus bill, I guess it is just the first part, and the total will be $6T. It makes me sick to think of the lobbiests getting rich off this. It's like a bunch of fat pigs feeding at the trough. The US can recover from the coronavirus. The US can recover from the business shutdowns. I just don't see the US recovering from the raping of the economy for $6T. So, yes, my share will be $46,500. I've never gotten a penny from any other stimulus, and I don't expect to this time, either. I guess it's my fault for not paying a lobbiest and standing with my hand out. I'll get by. I cut my pay to $0 so that the money I have can go to employees, and my pay will stay there until it's over. I'll just work harder to make up the difference, I guess, but it totally sucks. I'm just going to turn off the news for a few days. It makes me want to puke.
I will get money from the stimulus, that’s just not where the money should go IMO
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BillyTheCat
3/27/2020 4:45 PM
Mike Johnson wrote:expand_more
The two differences I do make, is deficit spending when in a time of need is a necessary evil (regardless of party).
That is true in Keynesian economics.

I won't touch the second part because I honestly don't know the answer. I do strongly suspect that the "facts" are clouded by the reporters' ideological bias. For example, during the Reagan years, who's responsible for spending, Reagan or Congress?

Where you sit politically will probably inform your answer.
Traditionally the era goes with the President, like Harry S Truman said, the Buck Stops Here. History also judges the reigns of Speakers of the House. One thing that is not to debate is trickle down economics started with Reagan and has been a GOP philosophy since. I am a strict fiscal conservative, and I have a real problem when the GOP touts this fiscal restraint, policy of tax cuts and paying for them through growth. It’s simply not happening. It’s not how you run a household budget, a business or a country. I love when people see my disagreement that the GOP is not a fiscally conservative group as me being a liberal or biased by the media. My voter registration and primary ballots are all public record, been a republican and for a couple decades active in the party even serving as a delegate in 1996.
I first became eligible to vote more than 50 years ago while serving in Korea. The Army made it easy for soldiers to vote. With that election and until 2016, although I didn't always vote straight ticket, I voted for Republican candidates for president. In 2016, in considering Trump's checkered business career, I couldn't bring myself to vote for him. Nor could I vote for Clinton whose dishonesty - in particular the time she eased from an Army copter and falsely asserted that she had come under enemy fire with rounds pinging off the fuselage - had cost her credibility. But I didn't want to forego my right to vote. What I did would have caused my late wife Lynne to grin; I voted for a 3rd party candidate, Dr. Jill Stein. (Lynne would have grinned because twice in years past I had teased her for voting for 3rd party candidates.)

My Republican leanings started tilting away during the second George Bush's presidency. It wasn't so much his launching the Iraq war - a disaster as it turned out - but the hard, inescapable fact that he went to the 8th years of his presidency before exercising his first veto of a spending bill.

Had Ohio's March 17 voting not been postponed, it would have been my first voting experience as an Independent. Yes, as the Board of Elections advised me, in that voting, as an Independent I could have voted only on issues. Come November will be my first opportunity to begin voting as an Independent.
Ohio is an open primary, one can vote either ballot of candidates and all issues. Same with an Independent. Sadly quite a few states are closed primaries. You want to really make a poll workers head explode show up with no photo ID and your electric or other utility Bill. 😎
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L.C.
3/29/2020 4:01 PM
Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:expand_more
If this bill passes, be sure to pay attention to whether or not your business is eligible for the social security deferral. If that applies to us, the 6.2% savings comes out to slightly over 30k per week. Basically acts as an interest free cash infusion. It's the part of all of this that's most exciting for my business, for sure.

I couldn't care less about the social security deferral. I'm not interested in having more loans at all, even at 0%. I can get through this without assistance, with only a little difficulty. However, this bill definitely puts me in a moral quandary. It is pushing me hard to just close permanently.

In normal times, most of my employees get about 32 hours a week at $10-12/hour. That nets them $280-330 a week, after taxes. If I simply close, they will make about 5x as much. They would get about $900 a week in unemployment, with no taxes, plus food stamps, medicaid, housing assistance, energy assistance and more. Essentially they would have spendable income equivalent to someone making about $70-80,000 before taxes. On the other hand, their massive benefits will run out after 39 weeks, and if I close, I will never re-open, and they will have no job to come back to, and will have to fight everyone else for the few jobs remaining.

My employees are aware of this, and were already talking about this Friday. I expect I will get some pressure from at least some of them this week to just close.

If the point of this bill was to keep the economy going, why on earth did they put in such a strong incentive for businesses to just close? A few Senators fought this and called it a "massive drafting error", but were told it was not an error, and that it was completely intentional, and to leave it be.
Last Edited: 3/29/2020 4:39:37 PM by L.C.
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IceCat76
3/29/2020 5:07 PM
L.C. wrote:expand_more
If this bill passes, be sure to pay attention to whether or not your business is eligible for the social security deferral. If that applies to us, the 6.2% savings comes out to slightly over 30k per week. Basically acts as an interest free cash infusion. It's the part of all of this that's most exciting for my business, for sure.

I couldn't care less about the social security deferral. I'm not interested in having more loans at all, even at 0%. I can get through this without assistance, with only a little difficulty. However, this bill definitely puts me in a moral quandary. It is pushing me hard to just close permanently.

In normal times, most of my employees get about 32 hours a week at $10-12/hour. That nets them $280-330 a week, after taxes. If I simply close, they will make about 5x as much. They would get about $900 a week in unemployment, with no taxes, plus food stamps, medicaid, housing assistance, energy assistance and more. Essentially they would have spendable income equivalent to someone making about $70-80,000 before taxes. On the other hand, their massive benefits will run out after 39 weeks, and if I close, I will never re-open, and they will have no job to come back to, and will have to fight everyone else for the few jobs remaining.

My employees are aware of this, and were already talking about this Friday. I expect I will get some pressure from at least some of them this week to just close.

If the point of this bill was to keep the economy going, why on earth did they put in such a strong incentive for businesses to just close? A few Senators fought this and called it a "massive drafting error", but were told it was not an error, and that it was completely intentional, and to leave it be.
At 32 hours and $10-12 per hour, let use an average of $11/hr, that would be $11x32= $352. Ohio unemployment is 50% or $176/wk. Add in $600 per week and you get $776/wk or gross of $40,352/yr. Plus unemployment insurance payments are subject to income tax, but not FICA. Not sure where you get equivalent of a $70-80k income. Am I missing something?
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Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
3/29/2020 6:21 PM
L.C. wrote:expand_more
If this bill passes, be sure to pay attention to whether or not your business is eligible for the social security deferral. If that applies to us, the 6.2% savings comes out to slightly over 30k per week. Basically acts as an interest free cash infusion. It's the part of all of this that's most exciting for my business, for sure.

I couldn't care less about the social security deferral. I'm not interested in having more loans at all, even at 0%. I can get through this without assistance, with only a little difficulty. However, this bill definitely puts me in a moral quandary. It is pushing me hard to just close permanently.

In normal times, most of my employees get about 32 hours a week at $10-12/hour. That nets them $280-330 a week, after taxes. If I simply close, they will make about 5x as much. They would get about $900 a week in unemployment, with no taxes, plus food stamps, medicaid, housing assistance, energy assistance and more. Essentially they would have spendable income equivalent to someone making about $70-80,000 before taxes. On the other hand, their massive benefits will run out after 39 weeks, and if I close, I will never re-open, and they will have no job to come back to, and will have to fight everyone else for the few jobs remaining.

My employees are aware of this, and were already talking about this Friday. I expect I will get some pressure from at least some of them this week to just close.

If the point of this bill was to keep the economy going, why on earth did they put in such a strong incentive for businesses to just close? A few Senators fought this and called it a "massive drafting error", but were told it was not an error, and that it was completely intentional, and to leave it be.
Do you offer employees healthcare? That should keep them around; less money but cheaper healthcare might win out over more money but full price healthcare.
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L.C.
3/29/2020 6:37 PM
IceCat76 wrote:expand_more
At 32 hours and $10-12 per hour, let use an average of $11/hr, that would be $11x32= $352. Ohio unemployment is 50% or $176/wk. Add in $600 per week and you get $776/wk or gross of $40,352/yr. Plus unemployment insurance payments are subject to income tax, but not FICA. Not sure where you get equivalent of a $70-80k income. Am I missing something? [/QUOTE]
Well, I we both missed something. I didn't realize that unemployment benefits were taxable, which would reduce it somewhat, and I should have said "about $800", not "about $900". What you were missing is that on top of the unemployment benefits, they get all the other entitlements, such as housing, energy, childcare, medicare, AFDC, etc. I don't claim to know or understand all of the programs out there. I have seen this chart, though, that was made using programs available in Pennsylvania about 8 years ago:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fPe2_5TbYrU/UMlkiOHBgyI/AAAAAAA...

In 2012, a single mom in Pennsylvania was better off to earn $29,000 than to earn $69,000, and earning $9,000 was almost the same as earning $29,000. Add in the extra payment of $600 a week, and it gets even crazier, even if the $600 is taxable. This is the kind of a crazy system you get when you pass a bunch of programs that are totally independent of each other, without thinking it through as a whole. Frankly, they should repeal all of them, and make one comprehensive, integrated program that makes sense, and provides incentives for people to try to get ahead, rather than creating a roach motel that gives people an incentive to stay trapped in the system.

[QUOTE=Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame]Do you offer employees healthcare? That should keep them around; less money but cheaper healthcare might win out over more money but full price healthcare.

I offered it, and paid 50% of single coverage until about 2003 or so, but as the price went up, less and less people enrolled, and I no longer had enough for a group. Until I qualified for Medicare this year, I haven't even had health insurance myself or family for 15 years. BTW, that is not a complaint, I could not have gotten along any other way. I saved at least $150,000 by not having insurance, though there was was a lot of annoyance negotiating with doctors and hospitals along the way. It is quite surprising how much difference there is prices from one doctor to the next. For example, I needed an office visit with a specialist. The first one charged $550, and since I didn't have insurance, he would take 10% off if I paid up front, so $495. The second one (who was also the better doctor, in my opinion) wanted $300, with 50% off for not having insurance, or $150. Considering that if I had insurance, the doctor would probably have been paid $100 or so plus a co-pay, the one that wanted $495 was just ridiculous.
Last Edited: 3/29/2020 7:31:30 PM by L.C.
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