Romney Whooped Him

[Feathers and Fins]

I totally understand where you are coming from but using just a dollar as an example is not practical.

Rising costs are a problem but are also pretty much a fact of life. And all the additional costs end up being paid by the consumer so big business can continue making year after year record profits. The little guy ends up getting the shaft in the end while the rich laugh all the way to the bank.

This is exactly why I said

Reducing Taxes will help and tax credits to small business will help

to many people think big companies are the backbone of this nation and the truth is not even close to that. Yes in Big cities people can see the Big Business but the majority of people are in small busines operation and those small business support those big busines's.

America base is small business and Mitt I beleive understands that more than Nobama. Drive down Main St USA and look at the Dinners, Hardware stores, Clothing shops etc they are small business America. That 1 or two blocks is probably supporting 1000 families where that big plant on the outskirts is probably supporting 1000 families as well but then get off Main St and you have another 5,000 families by small busines.

I see America for what it is when it comes to business, Millions of small business that are driving the nation.

[Greasy B]

Great conversation. The gorilla in the room is globalization. History tells us isolationism doesn't work. As the world shrinks and all countries economies become interdependent can America avoid being drug down to the economic level of our competitors?

[ness]

Everything you need to know is right here in this book by economist Laura Numeroff:

[Justin Spencer]

Great conversation. The gorilla in the room is globalization. History tells us isolationism doesn't work. As the world shrinks and all countries economies become interdependent can America avoid being drug down to the economic level of our competitors?

Very good point. We are fortunate to live in a country where our standard of living is pretty darn high even for many considered below the "poverty level". It would be great if we could all make big money but the truth is some will some won't. Some of that is work ethic, some is lazyness and part of it is luck. I would love to say that if I was born into poverty in the inner city, or even in a meth lab trailer in the Ozarks that I would still be where I am today, but the truth is I probably would not. Sure I work hard at being successful at what I do, but without the support of my family in going to college, helping with a down payment on my first house, and helping back us when we bought the campground my path to this point would have been more difficult. I've always worked while going to high school, college and beyond which helped me avoid having any real debt but back then tuition was lower, jobs were easier to get, and beer was cheap.

Both sides are right on many issues and wrong on many issues. I think for myself personally (owning a business) Romney would be best, I think for the long term direction of the country Obama might be better. The way I see it as a very small businessman if I have to pay higher taxes I will just have to raise prices (like we did when gas went up). I still need the same number of workers and if I continue to grow I will still need more, higher taxes shouldn't effect that, unless I am forced to raise prices to an extent where it hurts my business.

[Al Agnew]

I think you're making things a little too complicated. This country was built on competition, and competition is the essence of capitalism. The other essence of capitalism is profit. Profit, pure and simple, is what is left over after a business has paid all the costs of producing a product. It doesn't matter whether it's 2% or 20%, it has to be enough to sustain the business. If it isn't, you either go out of business or you raise your prices, and if you raise your prices because you aren't making enough and your competitor doesn't because he's doing things a little more efficiently or paying his employees a little less or willing to make less money himself, you go out of business anyway.

Taxes are based upon those net profits. If you're making a 2% profit, you're paying a percentage of that 2%. If you're making a 20% profit, you're paying the same percentage of that 20%. (Of course, that's assuming both are in the same tax bracket.) Taxes are simply part of the cost of doing business. If you're already losing money, you shouldn't be paying taxes. If you're barely making any money, you're paying a lot less taxes than the guy that's doing well.

Let's say that as a small business owner, you're making $100,000 a year net profit. That's after paying your employees and everything. Let's say the tax rate is, to keep it simple, 40%. You now are ending up with $60,000 a year. Say the tax rate drops to 30%. You now have another $10,000 to spend or save or invest back into the business. But how many people DO invest it back into the business? You would be a fool to do so UNLESS you see a probability of selling more product by upgrading facilities or hiring workers, and the only way that can happen is if you're seeing more demand for your product than you can keep up with. And even then, you often have the option of simply raising your prices until demand is in equilibrium with price and supply.

Point is, you don't automatically grow the economy by lowering taxes. In a way, we're seeing that now, as a lot of companies and people are seeing more money because they are making more profit because they laid off workers and forced their other workers to do more work for the same or less money. They aren't re-investing the extra cash, they are stashing the profits BECAUSE the poor economy has lessened DEMAND for their products to a point where they don't see any reason to expand their operations at this point.

So in actuality, it can be exceedingly difficult to create jobs no matter what you do, because once the economy really tanks the way it did this time, it's almost a self-replicating disaster. It's hard to break the cycle. This has been the next worst thing to the Great Depression, and the Great Depression didn't end until WWII created a vast new economic engine. And that's probably what it's going to take to get out of this, if it's even possible--some kind of vast new economic engine. You can drop taxes, and/or you can put up a lot of government stimulus money, and maybe get a little kick either way, but the reality of the world economy today is that too many jobs have gone overseas or been lost to automation and computerization, and those jobs ain't coming back. There simply aren't enough jobs to go around, and there probably won't be until some big new job MARKET comes along. I've had hopes that alternative energy on an individual, community, or company scale instead of adding alternative energy to the vast regional grids could be that new economic engine, with lots of jobs created in manufacturing small energy systems, manufacturing all the parts, maintenance, and repair. But I'm not holding my breath that will happen.

I suspect that no matter who is elected and who is in power, we aren't going to see anything in the near future but slow and halting recoveries, punctuated by sharp steps backward whenever something happens to scare people or disrupt energy supplies. Neither party has the answer. Trickle down mostly works in textbooks, not in the real world where other factors seem to always intervene. Government spending only seems to work in the short term and on a smaller level. At the same time, cutting government will make things worse in the short term as far as jobs are concerned.

So, as a self-employed small business person, put me down as somebody who wouldn't mind seeing my taxes lowered. I especially wouldn't mind a flat tax, or a national sales tax. But I really don't think any of those things would do all that much for the unemployment rate. Until you can figure out something to really create a lot of new, GOOD, HIGH PAYING jobs for the middle class consumers, who are the real drivers of our economy, and put significantly more money in the pockets of those that already have jobs, we're not going to see a big recovery any time soon.

After I read over the above, it struck me that what CAN make a difference for the small business owner is not taxes, but costs. But there's always a catch-22. For instance, if you're paying your employees' health care costs, and they keep going up, you keep making less money BEFORE taxes. But if health care reform lowers health care costs, it can also mean lowering profits to health providers and insurers, which can mean they feel they need to dump some employees, so unemployment could easily go up. Or what if the tax rate is simplified and deductions cut out? Suddenly the bigger companies need fewer accountants and the smaller companies and individuals might more likely do taxes themselves, so more unemployment. Seems like there's always this balancing act, where raising one "good" thing lowers something else. There are always winners and losers.

[Quillback]

Al, you're so gloomy...

But I share your fears, I think this nation is on a long downwards slide, I used to be an optimist, but no more. I always harp on this, but we've got a debt time bomb ticking away, and the last few days the pols have been arguing whether or not we should fund Big Bird. And should this latest anemic recovery falter, there's nothing the government can do (because it doesn't have any money) to "stimulate" another recovery. Social Security is now seriously underfunded as the SS payroll tax has been cut by 50% and there's no talk from either pol about how we're going to save SS. Healthcare costs are still going up (Obamacare does nothing to reduce costs), median income is going down, fuel costs remain high, the list goes on..

[Justin Spencer]

Healthcare costs are still going up (Obamacare does nothing to reduce costs), median income is going down, fuel costs remain high, the list goes on..

I can only speak for my family, but since Obamacare was passed my premiums only went up about $150 this year as opposed to nearly $1000 in previous years, and I got a $400 refund check from my insurance company. We got DSL out in the sticks, which the installer admitted was thanks to this administration. So in a couple instances my family has directly benefitted. Fuel cost is directly related to the GLOBAL oil prices so that can't be attributed to our production as much as we would like it to be.

Looks like in Missouri it won't matter who we vote for for president, but the Senate race will have major implications. I won't be upset if Romney wins but if he wins and republicans get a big majority in congress things could really change. With all the cuts to government they are proposing we will see a quick increase in unemployment before the magic of trickle down economics kicks in. Obviously govt. needs to be down sized in many areas, big bird needs to be served for thanksgiving dinner, Jim Lehrer needs to be put out to pasture, wars need to be ended, Mizzou needs to join conference USA, the Chiefs need to disband, the Royals will win it all "next year", and we need to legalize marijuana (which I don't smoke, but would rather people do this than drink in excess).

[Mitch f]

I read an interesting book in the nineties called "The Upcoming Economic Boom" or something close to that. The author's theory is that, after all the arguing from both sides, consumer spending is the largest catalyst for the economy. He conducted tests showing that a person typically spends the most money in their lives at an average age of 49 years. All the baby boomers will be on average turning 49 in the late 1990's to early 2000's. They were supposed to spend money like crazy during that time and drive up the economy. Unfortuanetly he was unable to predict 911 and the sub prime mortgage crisis. The gloomy part is that he predicted a big recession for 10-15 years (starting in 2010 I think) while the baby boomers retired and stated to curb their spending.

[Quillback]

I can only speak for my family, but since Obamacare was passed my premiums only went up about $150 this year as opposed to nearly $1000 in previous years, and I got a $400 refund check from my insurance company. We got DSL out in the sticks, which the installer admitted was thanks to this administration. So in a couple instances my family has directly benefitted. Fuel cost is directly related to the GLOBAL oil prices so that can't be attributed to our production as much as we would like it to be.

Looks like in Missouri it won't matter who we vote for for president, but the Senate race will have major implications. I won't be upset if Romney wins but if he wins and republicans get a big majority in congress things could really change. With all the cuts to government they are proposing we will see a quick increase in unemployment before the magic of trickle down economics kicks in. Obviously govt. needs to be down sized in many areas, big bird needs to be served for thanksgiving dinner, Jim Lehrer needs to be put out to pasture, wars need to be ended, Mizzou needs to join conference USA, the Chiefs need to disband, the Royals will win it all "next year", and we need to legalize marijuana (which I don't smoke, but would rather people do this than drink in excess).

Obamacare has not yet gone into effect, give it until 2015 then look at your bills.

Latest fuel increase have more to do with refinery outages and lack of pipeline capacity, oil is down to around $90/barrel.

[Jerry Rapp]

you are thinkin' Justin. Good for you. When you get to be an old fart, you will laugh at yourself when you think back to the young days.