Category Archives: Economics

Miscellaneous economy stuff

Government Controls

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Here’s the latest version of the Biden-Harris administration’s attempt to expand government control over our economy, this time using Medicare drug pricing as their venue. This example also is the latest inclusion in the Progressive-Democratic Party’s reconciliation bill.

The Health and Human Services Secretary will “negotiate” 10 to 20 of the drugs that Medicare spends most on, starting in 2025. Drug makers will get socked with a 95% excise tax on gross sales if they don’t agree to the government’s price.

This is a textbook example of the fascism version of socialism. Companies are free to produce and sell whatever they want, so long as it fits within Government requirements directing what is produced, the volume of production, and the prices to be charged.

Yet, Biden can’t make the trucks run on time.

A Risk and a Solution

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Japan’s Softbank Group has reported a significant loss driven by the technology company crackdown the People’s Republic of China government has inflicted on PRC tech-oriented companies and Softbank’s heavy investments in those companies.

Masayoshi Son, Softbank’s CEO, now is saying

Our China risk is not so huge. It is within our control[.]

And

It is a time of severe trials for China’s high-tech stocks. We are right in the middle of a storm.

And, as paraphrased by The Wall Street Journal,

[T]here is only so much more damage turmoil in China can do.

Here’s a thought: Softbank could eliminate the risk altogether and prevent any further damage by divesting itself of all PRC-oriented holdings and no longer investing at all in PRC companies, whether tech or ditch digging or anything in between.

Punish Success

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Punish, especially, those who are successful.

[T]he $1.75 trillion [reconciliation] package restores limits on so-called “mega IRAs,” preventing more money from being added to a Roth or traditional individual retirement account if its value exceeded $10 million. The restriction…would apply to individuals who make over $400,000 and married joint filers with more than $450,000 in annual income.

There’s that marriage penalty back, too.

And (and contradictorily to the income limit posited above)

[W]ealthy Americans with account balances above $10 million would have to draw down their accounts by a certain threshold each year, thereby triggering taxes on the money.
…. The general rule is that anyone with more than $10 million in an account must withdraw at least 50%. Those with more than $20 million would be required to withdraw 100% of anything over that $20 million threshold in their Roth accounts.

Regardless of their income. And to hell with their heirs. Or their intended charities.

Here’s another aspect of their game, from Steven Rosenthal of the Tax Policy Center:

A big first step to strip retirement tax benefits from those who don’t need the help[.]

Because Leftists know the needs of Americans better than those who’ve earned the wealth with which to satisfy their own needs.

Really, though, it’s not even that much. It’s much pettier.

Jealousy… is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

 

Disingenuosity of a Progressive-Democrat

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Recall that last spring’s reconciliation bill included an expanded child tax credit, which payments were automatic monthly payments that went to families without income as well as to those with income.

Progressive-Democrats, in the current reconciliation bill, want to make those credits permanent, and still automatic. Progressive-Democrats also want to start paying out a universal basic income to all Americans. But, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D, MD) is denying that the child tax credit is a step toward a universal basic income.

As constructed, though, this “credit,” paid automatically regardless of “need,” is itself income, and given the breadth of Americans who receive it, it’s virtually universal all by itself.

And, of course, it’s income.

What is Hoyer’s limiting principle that proves this child tax credit is not a step on the road to a fully universal basic income? What hard principle prevents him from changing his mind on this, or that prevents any of his colleagues from changing this “credit,” later?

Hoyer has none. He’s simply being disingenuous when he claims the nearly universal child tax credit isn’t a step—a huge step, nearly spanning the gap, I say—toward a universal basic income.

Misleading—And Potential Fraud?

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Getting an adverse reaction—of any sort—from an employer-mandated or -encouraged Wuhan Virus vaccination? The Biden-Harris OSHA doesn’t want to hear about it.

The Department of Labor’s pledge Monday to publish an “emergency temporary standard” on COVID vaccine mandates “in the coming days” threatens to worsen the skewed picture federal regulators have been getting from employers for five months.

29 CFR Part 1904 – RECORDING AND REPORTING OCCUPATIONAL INJURIES AND ILLNESSES, among other things as JtN puts it requires employers to “record and report work-related fatalities, injuries, and illnesses[.]” OSHA, though, is exempting employers from reporting Wuhan Virus-related adverse reactions.

And this:

[T]he exemption is a “welcome reprieve to employers” because their insurance could have jumped based on recordkeeping logs of adverse reactions to vaccines, which have “little to no correlation” with an unsafe workplace, [labor lawyer Keith Wilkes of Hall Estill] told Just the News.

Concealing health data from the company’s health insurer could amount to insurance fraud, depending on the terms of the employer-insurer contract. It also could impact negotiations over new or renewed employer-insurer contracts, and fraudulently so if those withheld data are material to the matter being negotiated.

To be sure, OSHA still encourages employees

to file complaints when they believe their employer has exposed them to COVID or is “not taking appropriate steps to protect you from exposure.”

Which, to a candid world, would seem a bit one-sided when the employers are being told by the same OSHA to shut up about adverse reactions.

But that’s the Biden-Harris administration for you.