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Your argument is that all deals governments make are bad, this is a deal, so it must be bad?

by sfeng 12y ago

phkahler 12y ago
I would argue that they are. States competing on deals like this is bad. If no state gave an incentive, they'd have to pick one at full price anyway. Also, if the deal is good with Tesla, why not give similar deals to every company that wants to put up a building? In the end states will just forego corporate taxes altogether and get all their revenue from the people. Is that bad? I'd have to think harder before answering that, but I'm inclined to say yes. Corporations don't retire, people do. People need to be able to get of the monetary treadmill, but companies don't.
- smsm42 12y ago
  >> If no state gave an incentive, they'd have to pick one at full price anyway Or build it in another country and people could scream at them for being unpatriotic. >> Also, if the deal is good with Tesla, why not give similar deals to every company that wants to put up a building? You are arguing for lower taxes. This is a noble goal, but much harder to achieve than such deal. As Bismarck said, politics is the art of the possible. It's not ideal, but given current situation it's also not the worst outcome. >> In the end states will just forego corporate taxes altogether and get all their revenue from the people. Corporate taxes are about 10% of budget income, despite US corporate tax rates being one of the highest in the world. So it's neither unprecedented not unimaginable to have lower corporate tax rates. As for the people, corporations are ultimately owned by people, so it's still tax on people, just certain kind of people - doing business in the US. Every dollar taken as corporate tax is not paid as dividend, not invested in hiring another worker, not spent on buying supplies or services. So ultimately it's people all the way down.
  - phkahler 12y ago
    >> Every dollar taken as corporate tax is not paid as dividend, not invested in hiring another worker, not spent on buying supplies or services. Sure it is, just not spent by the corporation. The government will spend it - they can't seem to help themselves. The only thing taxes change is who gets to control where the money goes. One can just as easily say "tax corporate revenue" and not paychecks, since it's allegedly circular with money going back and forth between people and companies (people all the way down). I'm not advocating this of course, but we're living in a time when your assertions about profit going to hiring, supplies, and services are clearly false. It happens, but it's certainly not a given.
    - smsm42 12y ago
      We were talking about the revenues - the idea was that all tax revenue ultimately comes "from people", every economic decision affects people - because people are the only willful agents in the economy, there's nobody else. >>> The only thing taxes change is who gets to control where the money goes. Not entirely. The government usually proves to have quite inefficient with how it spends revenues. Sometimes it is necessary - i.e., feeding the destitute produces no money, but has a humanitarian value. Sometimes, it is not - like spending billions on bridges to nowhere and crony projects that collapse the minute government financing is withdrawn. So we also have to consider the destruction of value that the government involvement usually brings about. Of course, corporations can destroy value too - but usually can't survive for very long once they started to do it unless they manage to stop. For the government, it has to be extraordinarily destructive to collapse, for a company, the bar is much lower. >>> your assertions about profit going to hiring, supplies, and services are clearly false. It happens, but it's certainly not a given. Err, I'm not sure where your "clearly false" comes from. Is it clear to you that corporations do not spend money on hiring, supplies and services? How they then manage to have people show up to work and suppliers to give them supplies and services, if they don't pay for it? Also, if some fairyland corporation ever managed to pull off such impossible trick, it still wouldn't change a thing, as that would only mean entire revenue goes to the corporation owners - i.e., again, "people".

Your argument is that all deals governments make are bad, this is a deal, so it must be bad?

by sfeng 12y ago

Your argument is that all deals governments make are bad, this is a deal, so it must be bad?

I would argue that they are. States competing on deals like this is bad. If no state gave an incentive, they'd have to pick one at full price anyway. Also, if the deal is good with Tesla, why not give similar deals to every company that wants to put up a building? In the end states will just forego corporate taxes altogether and get all their revenue from the people. Is that bad? I'd have to think harder before answering that, but I'm inclined to say yes. Corporations don't retire, people do. People need to be able to get of the monetary treadmill, but companies don't.

smsm42 12y ago
>> If no state gave an incentive, they'd have to pick one at full price anyway Or build it in another country and people could scream at them for being unpatriotic. >> Also, if the deal is good with Tesla, why not give similar deals to every company that wants to put up a building? You are arguing for lower taxes. This is a noble goal, but much harder to achieve than such deal. As Bismarck said, politics is the art of the possible. It's not ideal, but given current situation it's also not the worst outcome. >> In the end states will just forego corporate taxes altogether and get all their revenue from the people. Corporate taxes are about 10% of budget income, despite US corporate tax rates being one of the highest in the world. So it's neither unprecedented not unimaginable to have lower corporate tax rates. As for the people, corporations are ultimately owned by people, so it's still tax on people, just certain kind of people - doing business in the US. Every dollar taken as corporate tax is not paid as dividend, not invested in hiring another worker, not spent on buying supplies or services. So ultimately it's people all the way down.
- phkahler 12y ago
  >> Every dollar taken as corporate tax is not paid as dividend, not invested in hiring another worker, not spent on buying supplies or services. Sure it is, just not spent by the corporation. The government will spend it - they can't seem to help themselves. The only thing taxes change is who gets to control where the money goes. One can just as easily say "tax corporate revenue" and not paychecks, since it's allegedly circular with money going back and forth between people and companies (people all the way down). I'm not advocating this of course, but we're living in a time when your assertions about profit going to hiring, supplies, and services are clearly false. It happens, but it's certainly not a given.
  - smsm42 12y ago
    We were talking about the revenues - the idea was that all tax revenue ultimately comes "from people", every economic decision affects people - because people are the only willful agents in the economy, there's nobody else. >>> The only thing taxes change is who gets to control where the money goes. Not entirely. The government usually proves to have quite inefficient with how it spends revenues. Sometimes it is necessary - i.e., feeding the destitute produces no money, but has a humanitarian value. Sometimes, it is not - like spending billions on bridges to nowhere and crony projects that collapse the minute government financing is withdrawn. So we also have to consider the destruction of value that the government involvement usually brings about. Of course, corporations can destroy value too - but usually can't survive for very long once they started to do it unless they manage to stop. For the government, it has to be extraordinarily destructive to collapse, for a company, the bar is much lower. >>> your assertions about profit going to hiring, supplies, and services are clearly false. It happens, but it's certainly not a given. Err, I'm not sure where your "clearly false" comes from. Is it clear to you that corporations do not spend money on hiring, supplies and services? How they then manage to have people show up to work and suppliers to give them supplies and services, if they don't pay for it? Also, if some fairyland corporation ever managed to pull off such impossible trick, it still wouldn't change a thing, as that would only mean entire revenue goes to the corporation owners - i.e., again, "people".