Economics

[Ndaccountant]

I know you are baiting a debate over how unfair it is for huge companies not to "pay their fair share" - I would be interested in the graphic that shows payroll and income taxes paid by employees of those same companies. Global companies have the option of recognizing profits in more tax favorable jurisdictions and will go to great lengths to do so. If the US were the low tax jurisdiction they could capture more of this revenue. All they do is punish small, domestic only businesses with this stupid policy that only generates 9% of federal revenue.

Not what you wanted entirely, but also shows how the 9%, historically speaking, is not the right way to look at it.

 

[RDU Irish]

All that shows is that they are paying less than 7.65% of payroll in income taxes. Not surprising at all to me that those shares have shifted - oh wait, quick search shows me FICA taxes increases (A LOT) from 1951 through the 1980s in both percentage and income cap.

1951-1952 - FICA was 1.5% on first $3600 - self employment was 2.25% meaning corporations were paying 0.75% on $3600 then versus 7.65% on up to $128k today.
Historical FICA Tax Information

Corporate taxation has shifted from taxing profits to taxing the labor - DC chooses this b/c it is a more stable revenue source and harder to offshore. In reality they are holding domestic companies hostage while giving huge advantages to multinationals.

Part of my original point was that personal income taxes and FICA contributions paid by company employees as a function of their work should be credited to some degree to the companies and add up to a much larger number than the 9% the companies are credited for.

 

[Legacy]

Research report:
A Federal Consumption Tax as Replacement for the Employer Payroll Tax (Tax Policy Center)

According to the Tax Policy Center, 62 percent of all taxpaying households paid more in payroll taxes than income taxes in 2017; and 67 percent of households with incomes below $100,000 in annual income paid more in payroll taxes. The average effective payroll tax rate for households in the middle quintile of the income distribution was 8 percent in 2016, well above the average effective rate of 3.5 percent for income taxes.

(Source-To Help the Middle Class, Cut Payroll Taxes)

(Linked)
T17-0097 - Distribution of Federal Payroll and Income Taxes by Expanded Cash Income Level, 2016 (Tax Policy Center)

 

[Legacy]

The Fight Over Student Loan Debt

The Fight Over Student Loan Debt

Price of unpaid student debt: The very job needed to pay it (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, originally NY Times)

State penalties can come as a surprise to young borrowers

Fall behind on your student loan payments, lose your job.

Few people realize that the loans they take out to pay for their education could eventually derail their careers. But in 19 states, government agencies can seize state-issued professional licenses from residents who default on their educational debts. Another state, South Dakota, suspends driver’s licenses, making it nearly impossible for people to get to work.

As debt levels rise, creditors are taking increasingly tough actions to chase people who fall behind on student loans. Going after professional licenses stands out as especially punitive.

Firefighters, nurses, teachers, lawyers, massage therapists, barbers, psychologists and real estate brokers have all had their credentials suspended or revoked.

Wall Street Is Fighting a CFPB Deal Over Billions in Defaulted Student Loans (Bloomberg)

It seemed like the kind of case regulators had resolved countless times before: Debt collectors are accused of using flawed documentation and lawsuits to collect unpaid loans. A fine is levied, a promise to reform is made, and everyone moves on.

Not this time. A maelstrom of banks, insurers, debt collectors, and hedge funds enveloped the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau when it tried to settle allegations of shoddy collection practices on billions of dollars in student loans. A novel settlement proposal between the regulator and a private equity firm meant to clear up the matter has Wall Street warning of expensive consequences for future student borrowers.

 

[Legacy]

Chicken Wars

Chicken Wars

In September, Kansas Gov Brownback, his Ag Sec and other governmental employees together with Tyson Foods announced an agreement for a $320 million poultry processing plant near the university town of Lawrence, at Tonganoxie, a town of 5,000, near Interstate 70. The plant would generate 1600 jobs, most of them at $13-15 per hour. Additionally, Tyson's business plan included buying grain from local farmers and contracting with 300-400 local poultry houses to raise the chickens. Kansas estimated that the plant would provide a benefit of $150 million per year. The plant would "process" 1.25 million birds each week, requiring 2 million gallons of water per day. Tyson Foods as a whole used 32 billion gallons of water in 2016.

The agreement would be finalized when the county issued $500 million in bonds and when county and city investing $8.6 million in addition to the donation of the land. Until that announcement, non-disclosure agreements with governmental entities had kept residents in the dark. Residents mobilized expressing a number of concerns at town halls, about the millions in tax breaks, increase infrastructure costs, how many immigrants would be employed, whether those employees would make enough to stay off Medicaid, employee housing needs, costs of new schools with current schools at full capacity, huge water usage, disposal of subsequent nitrates in the water, noxious odors, Tyson's past business practices and multiple legal settlements for felony violations of the Clean Water Act including toxic discharges in Missouri and Arkansas and violations of the Clean Air Act in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.

Tyson Foods, Kansas officials answer town’s fears about secrecy, immigrants & chickens (KC Star)

Tyson and Kansas officials scrambled looking for another location, then citing three finalists, hosting further town halls at those locations. Three days after a town hall in Coffeyville, Tyson announced it had chosen a Tennessee location for a processing plant with similar numbers as the proposed Kansas one, but that a Kansas location was just "on hold" at this time. Nebraska is reportedly interested in the next similar poultry plant.

Tyson, producing one out of every five pounds of meat produced in the United States, is the largest meat producer in the U.S. Tyson owns brands like Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, and Sara Lee, in addition to selling to fast food retailers like McDonalds with beef, pork and chicken products. Tyson's meat processing plants are throughout the states on the Mississippi floodplain.

New Investigation Identifies Companies Responsible for Massive Dead Zone in Gulf of Mexico
Tyson Foods, America’s Largest Meat Company, Leads Those Found to be driving massive Manure and Fertilizer Pollution

-Tyson is the only meat company with major processing facilities in each of the states listed by the USGS as contributing the highest levels of pollution to the Gulf.
-Tyson and Smithfield have the heaviest concentration of meat facilities in those regions of the country with the highest levels of nitrate contamination.

Of note, one of Tyson's lobbiests, Matt Mika, was one of the five victims in the shooting of Congressional Republican legislators on the baseball field.

Tyson has benefitted from NAFTA and has called on legislators and the Admin to protect agriculture interests in any NAFTA negotiations.

Under new trade rules, Tyson in June became the second meat producer to send beef to China. Tyson Foods is the nation’s biggest beef processor. Beef exports generated about $2 billion in sales for the company in its 2016 fiscal year, out of $14.5 billion in total beef sales and a total of $36.9 billion in sales.

 

[Legacy]

Originally Posted by wizards8507 View Post
Absolute complete and utter bullshit. The "tax benefit" of home ownership is a complete myth. I'll use real numbers from my own mortgage.

This year, I'll pay roughly $11,000 in interest to the bank. At a marginal tax rate of 25%, this will save me $2,750 in federal income tax. So I sent $11,000 to the bank in exchange for $2,750 less that I have to send to the IRS, meaning I'm $8,250 WORSE off with my mortgage than I would be without it.

Also, the implication that this policy drives housing costs up implies that people are actually doing the calculation before purchasing a home. I assure you, they're not. It just so happens that I did. On my 30-year, $322,000 mortgage, the net present value of all future tax benefits is something like $20,000, meaning it's responsible for about 5% of my home's value. Clearly not the stuff that prices families out of cities.

Know what does inflate home prices though? Artificially low interest rates. #EndTheFed

ETA: Also, what the hell are these people doing? I don't make $300,000 per year so guess what? I didn't buy a $650,000 home.

People do not look at the delta and assume the entire interest amount is deductible. Only after you exceed you Standard Deduction does it make sense to itemize and most people don't come close. Then you have the issue of AMT getting triggered if you itemize too much. The generalizations for these calcs are rarely anywhere close to accurate.

In your case, high state income taxes plus property taxes plus charity plus mortgage interest likely combine for the entirety of your itemized deductions. In 2017 a married standard deduction is $12,700.

I disagree also with your lack of opportunity cost calculated against your mortgage. Lower payment may allow you to contribute to your 401k to save taxes and (hopefully) get more than 3.5% over 30 years. You have to live somewhere and the cost of rent should be put against the cost of home ownership (which nobody ever includes the cost of upkeep amortized monthly). The larger point I think you are making is that so much of home ownership falls into the discretionary category - nobody "needs" a 4000 sqft McMansion or granite countertops.

Comments with what changes the tax bill will bring?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wow>> Dollar General CEO on why company's booming: “The economy is continuing to create more of our core customer. We are putting stores [in areas] that 5 yrs ago were just on cusp of not being our demographic & it has now turned to being our demographic.” <a href="https://t.co/d6tBzJNCtr">https://t.co/d6tBzJNCtr</a></p>— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) <a href="https://twitter.com/AlecMacGillis/status/938130091967762432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Feel that tide a'risin?

 

[zelezo vlk]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wow>> Dollar General CEO on why company's booming: “The economy is continuing to create more of our core customer. We are putting stores [in areas] that 5 yrs ago were just on cusp of not being our demographic & it has now turned to being our demographic.” <a href="https://t.co/d6tBzJNCtr">https://t.co/d6tBzJNCtr</a></p>— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) <a href="https://twitter.com/AlecMacGillis/status/938130091967762432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Feel that tide a'risin?

Yup

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5mf-BIZumaA" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Legacy]

Arizona schools hired 1,035 underqualified teachers this school year (Azcentral)

More than 1,000 teachers in more than 120 Arizona school districts and charter schools have been certified to teach tens of thousands of students through a certificate that requires no formal education training.

The number of these certificates — called Emergency Teaching Certificates — eclipsed the 789 certificates issued for all of last school year, according to Arizona Department of Education data obtained by The Arizona Republic.

In June, The Republic published a first-of-its-kind analysis that found 22 percent of 46,000 teachers last school year lacked the full qualifications of a standard certificate.

That analysis, informed by a certification database that included 162 Arizona school districts, also found that nearly 2,000 teachers last year had not completed formal teacher training. More than 40 teachers lacked college degrees.

This school year, teachers continue to enter and leave Arizona's public education system at an alarming rate, citing low pay, low support, stressful working conditions and diminished respect.

School officials from districts using Emergency Teaching Certificates said they’ve sought to hire teachers through this certificate only once they've exhausted all efforts to find teachers who are appropriately certified.

State certification data show that emergency teachers are filling positions at every school level, from high school grades to elementary school. They're teaching multiple subjects in a single grade level and single subjects such as math or science across multiple grades.

Of the 43 school districts that have requested and issued more than five Emergency Teaching Certificates this school year, 32 had more than 60 percent of their students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, an indicator of student poverty.

Teachers, education advocates and business leaders have tried to instill urgency in state political leaders to address Arizona’s low teacher pay and school funding.

Low pay is among the top reasons teachers cite when they leave the profession, in some cases during the middle of the school year.

According to an ASPAA survey released in September, 526 teachers quit or abandoned their jobs within the first four weeks of school.

Elementary teachers in Arizona remained among the nation’s worst-compensated in 2016 with a median salary of $42,474, according to data tracked by the non-profit Expect More Arizona.

Hammond Garcia, the ASPAA past president, believes the number of teachers quitting is "more than likely" directly correlated with the state's overall quality of teacher applicants.

"We’re never going to attract the quality of teachers our students deserve until we fix the root problem of teacher pay," Hammond Garcia said.

 

[RDU Irish]

Scary. And doesn't benefit half of Americans.

For roughly half of Americans, the stock market’s record highs don’t help at all
(WaPo)

Yeah, the average American is financially illiterate, living under a mountain of debt and saves nothing. Learn from their mistakes.

If you are suggesting a larger social safety net is needed b/c, you know, rich people suck, then say so.

 

[RDU Irish]

That change looks good - only the very lowest earners are bigger % than 1971 until you get to the 80k-90k range where they are increasingly more prevalent than 1971 (note inflation adjusted). Ignore the increases of $100k-$200k because, you know, Zuckerburg? Draw that out to $300k or $400k and the far right probably looks a lot different. Part of the issue is scaling.

 

[Legacy]

A healthy economy does not affect everyone equally.

‘I hope I can quit working in a few years’: A preview of the US without pensions (Alaska Dispatch News, originally from WaPo)

In Appalachia, coal miners who contributed to pension plans and were guaranteed free health care for life and are now retired are seeing their pension plans disappear as coal companies regularly declare bankruptcy. They turn to the federal government to save their pensions, for disabilities like black lung, and for their health benefits.

Bipartisan Bill Would Prop Up Coal Miners’ Pensions (WV Public broadcasting)

 

[Legacy]

Measuring the Fiscal Health of State Pension Plans (Pew)

A state pension plan’s annual funded ratio gives an end-of-fiscal-year snapshot of the assets as a proportion of the accrued liabilities. In aggregate, the funded ratio of these plans dropped to 72 percent in 2015 from 75 percent in 2014. Across the country, funded ratios for plans reviewed by The Pew Charitable Trusts ranged from 37 percent in New Jersey to 104 percent in South Dakota.

The underlying funding differences among pension plans and states reflect policy choices, including plan design, contribution policies, and investment return assumptions, in addition to pension fund performance in the stock market. Pew’s issue brief “The State Pension Funding Gap: 2015,” published in April 2017, outlines these differences in detail.

Financial Sinkhole States In The Trump Tax Era (Forbes)

 

[Legacy]

Historical Highest Marginal Income Tax Rates (Tax Policy Center)

In 1971, the top marginal rate was 70%. The new tax bill lowers that rate in 2018 to 37%. ($550k and higher)

 

[Ndaccountant]

After the worst week in the past two years, Wall Street today is having their worst one day loss in history down 1500 points sinking below their 50 day average. The financial sector has lost 4.2% in two days.

Yep. Fed didn't do Wells Fargo any favors, which impacted everyone.

But quoting a post about strong economic growth and stock market noise is either conflating the two or trying to mislead.

First, 300+ trading days elapsed since the end of the last 3% dip in the S&P 500 until these decline. That's the longest stretch since 1928 without even such a minor setback in the S&P Composite. The market was way too hot.

Next, this is what happened in the 10 year. Due to wage growth and inflation and expectations, the yield went up...and fast, hitting points not seen since 2014. It came back down today, but what you are seeing in the impact of rapidly rising rates. Most businesses carry debt, so a sharp jump in borrowing costs can eat into a company's short term profits. Yields stabilize, Mr. Market will return to growth as new seedlings of value have sprouted from the short term storm.

 

[Legacy]

Yep. Fed didn't do Wells Fargo any favors, which impacted everyone.

But quoting a post about strong economic growth and stock market noise is either conflating the two or trying to mislead.

First, 300+ trading days elapsed since the end of the last 3% dip in the S&P 500 until these decline. That's the longest stretch since 1928 without even such a minor setback in the S&P Composite. The market was way too hot.

Next, this is what happened in the 10 year. Due to wage growth and inflation and expectations, the yield went up...and fast, hitting points not seen since 2014. It came back down today, but what you are seeing in the impact of rapidly rising rates. Most businesses carry debt, so a sharp jump in borrowing costs can eat into a company's short term profits. Yields stabilize, Mr. Market will return to growth as new seedlings of value have sprouted from the short term storm.

If GDP continues to grow at 3+% within continued job growth creation, the reaction may be to bond yields. Lots of other possible factors - trade imbalance with China is at an all-time high, China threatening to retaliate if U.S. institutes tariffs, trade talks with NATFA are slow, the fed government shutdown looms, Trump touting more federal spending with nuclear arsenal/military buildup and infrastructure spending, farm bill is going nowhere with other bills backing up in addition to an inflated Wall Street and inflation concerns. With the new tax bill, the most leveraged companies will only be able to deduct up to 30% of its EBITDA. In October, mutual funds cash reserves were at there lowest in a while. The decline in the dollar had driven up oil prices, but the dollar gained 0.7% on Friday and the energy markets suffered. Stronger than expected job growth and wage increases added to inflation fears.

 

[Legacy]

How Many More Jobs Would There Be Without The Trade Deficit? (Forbes)

 

[Whiskeyjack]

The Week's Matthew Walther just published an article titled "The payday loan industry is indefensible":

A mother and her two children, one a baby in her arms, the other a toddler holding her hand, approach a neon-lit storefront. It is snowing outside, but the toddler is trying to remove her puffy jacket for reasons that are probably very important to her but very frustrating to her mother, who struggles not to drop the baby while forcing the sleeves back around her daughter's tiny arms. That accomplished, the woman guides her little girls past the threshold of a business named, unbelievably, "Cash Store."

They are there because the woman has no money and needs some. Probably it will be another two weeks before she is paid again by the pharmaceutical chain that employs her, at the rate of $10 an hour, to stand behind a counter and ask customers whether they have signed up for the Rewards Program. But she hasn't got two weeks to wait. She has to put gas in her vehicle and pay her rent and the bill charged by the care center where her children spend their days while she furthers the vital mission of the Rewards Program. She has to buy formula and juice and crackers and maybe food for herself. She has to figure out what's going on with the bill from the pediatrician's office — but, what's that, it's already gone to a collection agency even though she was told by an agent of the insurance company to which she gives $300 a month that her daughter's visit was fully covered. She wants to call to ask about that, but her phone service was terminated last week. Maybe, too, in a moment of rashness, she did what Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told her not to do, even though he expects robust economic growth this year, and bought something for herself, like a beer or a movie ticket, that she didn't really need.

So rather than explain to her baby that the formula will have to wait she hands the Cash Store clerk a copy of her pay stub and her bank account information. In a few minutes she leaves with $400. If all goes well, she will only have to pay back the $400 plus another $200 in interest and miscellaneous fees. Doubtless this $200 would be useful to her in two weeks' time, but she needs that $400 now.

Payday lending, with its grotesquely high interest rates and fees, is indefensible. Who could argue otherwise? In other ages, in every clime, there used to be another name for it — usury — and it was a name that burned on the lips of defenders of the common good from Aristotle to Gandhi. But in America in 2018, where it is a $50 billion industry, it has many defenders. Mick Mulvaney, who is in charge of budgets at the White House, which recently issued its recommendations that women who require assistance in order to feed their children should in the future receive cans of peas and dried milk in the mail instead of being allowed to visit the grocery store, is also the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He defends the usurers. Indeed, he has been paid to do so by the usurers themselves. This probably explains why he has just shut down an investigation into an online lender that had been charging customers 900 percent interest.

But not everyone is like Mulvaney. There are also the economists, professional and otherwise, who defend usurers for free. You know the sort of person I mean. There is a style that is universal among economists and the popular devotees of that science, a mawkish, counter-intuitive posture that involves racing to see who can say "Actually … " with the most evident self-satisfaction. The authors of Freakonomics, who in their bestseller welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade on the grounds that it might have reduced crime, patiently explain that, poor dears, the customers served by the payday lenders have no one else to turn to. Probably they are right. Payday lenders of their charity agree to take advantage of people so marginalized that even Visa and Capital One decline the privilege of exploiting them. Besides, the economists observe, citing a survey, "almost 90 percent of users of the product say that they're either somewhat satisfied or very satisfied with the product afterwards." Imagine thinking that this was unanswerable.

With the exception of abortion, payday lending is the most obvious indictment of the modern world and how it is organized. It wraps under its hideous mantle greed, consumer fetishism, waste, fraud, theft, and the vast indifference of a system organized around the exploitation of the desperate — all the sins that we tolerate or ignore because without them our comfortable way of life would disappear. Yet it would be wrong to think of payday lending as something cold and mechanical, indifferent to the fate of those upon whom it preys. This is because it is not content with depriving them of their worldly goods. It also feels entitled — and what economist could argue otherwise, for is there not a contract? — to their dignity.

 

[zelezo vlk]

Dan Gilbert is fuming in Predatory Lending Arena

 

[wizards8507]

The Week's Matthew Walther just published an article titled "The payday loan industry is indefensible":

Moral hazard. Let stupid people suffer the consequences of their stupid decisions. I've never been to a payday lender, but as long as the interest, penalties, and fees are adequately disclosed and the borrower is not mentally deficient, so be it.

Also, give me a break with that anecdote. Breast milk is literally free. Absent some kind of medical condition, no mother should need a payday loan to buy formula. Even the name of it, "formula," is dystopian AF. Did you drink your formula today? No, I had a ration packet instead. I ate one quarter portion.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Moral hazard. Let stupid people suffer the consequences of their stupid decisions. I've never been to a payday lender, but as long as the interest, penalties, and fees are adequately disclosed and the borrower is not mentally deficient, so be it.

Also, give me a break with that anecdote. Breast milk is literally free. Absent some kind of medical condition, no mother should need a payday loan to buy formula. Even the name of it, "formula," is dystopian AF. Did you drink your formula today? No, I had a ration packet instead. I ate one quarter portion.

You make an incredible number of assumptions. We haven't dealt with this but there are a large number of mothers who are unable to breastfeed. And describe mentally deficient? Is it the same cutoff for mentally retarded? Or maybe 20 IQ pts above?

I get it's a part a of your schtick to want free markets and allow every type of business to exist of people are stupid enough to patronize it but it's reasonable to many that a government try to eliminate predatory businesses that solely exist to ensnare.

I know you'd be fine with opt-in Russian Roulette companies but most of us have a moral issue with it.

 

[Wild Bill]

Moral hazard. Let stupid people suffer the consequences of their stupid decisions. I've never been to a payday lender, but as long as the interest, penalties, and fees are adequately disclosed and the borrower is not mentally deficient, so be it.

It's not merely stupid people that suffer. There are social and cultural costs that logically follow when you give parasitic lenders access to citizens of your community. Worse yet, these lenders are almost always alien to the communities they operate within and hold no stake in the long term health of the people or community.

Access to our citizens is not the only benefit extended to the lenders. We give them access to our legal system, where they can use our laws, i.e., garnish wages and seize bank accounts, to collect debts they knew were unpayable the moment the contract was signed by both parties.

Once that seizure or garnishment takes place, these shit tier creditors, in effect, are given a priority payment over creditors who lend in good faith with reasonable interest rates. So good faith lenders suffer the consequences of their immoral business practices.

Spouses who rely on the income of a fiscally irresponsible partner also suffer. Funds they relied upon to keep their household in tact are depleted. Obviously they shouldn't have married an idiot but what inevitably occurs when financial disaster strikes is divorce or an increase in divorce rates. Increasing the divorce rates increases the amount of single parent homes and those single parent homes, in large part, becomes burdens on the state.

So it's not just the village idiot that suffers. It's the village and innocent individuals and good faith creditors within the village. And for what gain? So some foreign entity can profit at any cost - including social and culturally costs?

If our laws are a reflection of our morality, why should we give immoral, alien lenders access to operate immoral businesses within our society? Of course they'll argue free men should have the freedom to enter into contracts as they see fit. As I see it, their rights should properly be limited when they begin to infringe on my rights. It's plainly obvious that this practice can and will infringe upon the rights of all individuals within a community, at some point, so I'm inclined to impose limits on them to protect myself.
I understand how someone can come to a different result here b/c admittedly there is no immediate imposition on my rights. But it's reasonable to conclude that I will be negatively impacted and it's reasonable for me to impose my will on others to prevent it from happening.

The other issue here is does this type of business practice subvert a free market? It doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to understand these lenders are predators, and you acknowledged that some men are just too stupid to resist, so we can reasonably assume many people will be victimized. At what point do the masses lose trust in the "free market"? That's impossible to answer but something to consider.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Moral hazard. Let stupid people suffer the consequences of their stupid decisions. I've never been to a payday lender, but as long as the interest, penalties, and fees are adequately disclosed and the borrower is not mentally deficient, so be it.

Man you're just spewing the fuckthepoorism all over today.

You seem to be pretty clueless on how many Americans don't have a spare couple hundred bucks for emergencies. If you're dirt poor and hit a pothole (because your city doesn't give a shit about your neighborhood and pave everywhere else instead) and break an axle, you might need a payday loan to afford to get to work (since we systematically destroyed our public transportation infrastructure #corporatism).

It's okay though, your parents were poor and you aren't and it's a license to not give a fuck about anyone or defend people against financial predators.

 

[wizards8507]

Infantilism, pure and simple.

"You ain't doing these kids a favor by patronizing them. You're crippling them. You're crippling them for life."

There's no victim in a voluntary transaction between consenting adults.

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

 

[Buster Bluth]

There's no victim in a voluntary transaction between consenting adults.

Thus the sociopathic results of libertarianism. It requires someone to be oblivious to every variable other than consent.

 

[wizards8507]

Thus the sociopathic results of libertarianism. It requires someone to be oblivious to every variable other than consent.

Those variables are irrelevant when it comes to victimhood. They're certainly relevant in making normative decisions, which is why I think payday lenders are horrible. I also think pornographers are horrible, but watching porn doesn't make you a victim.

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

 

[Buster Bluth]

Those variables are irrelevant when it comes to victimhood. They're certainly relevant in making normative decisions, which is why I think payday lenders are horrible. I also think pornographers are horrible, but watching porn doesn't make you a victim.

Strawman much?

Payday lenders are horrible, and we make laws for society. Does it benefit society to have pieces of shit running around getting the poor, uneducated, and thus vulnerable to sign horrendous deals that perpetuate the cycle of poverty? I'm going to go with no. Most sensible people agree. It's only the bought and paid for politicians and libertarians spouting off crap about muh consent who don't want stiffer regulation of this industry.

 

[dshans]

Usury laws, with a Biblical connection, bit the dust decades ago.

What a shame.

Clear the table of those unscurpulous money changers.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Moral hazard. Let stupid people suffer the consequences of their stupid decisions. I've never been to a payday lender, but as long as the interest, penalties, and fees are adequately disclosed and the borrower is not mentally deficient, so be it.

Are you a Catholic or a Calvinist? You are your brothers' keeper. And "exploiting the wage-earner" is one of the four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance.

Usury laws, with a Biblical connection, bit the dust decades ago.

What a shame.

Clear the table of those unscurpulous money changers.

 

[wizards8507]

Are you a Catholic or a Calvinist? You are your brothers' keeper. And "exploiting the wage-earner" is one of the four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance.

Seriously? The language in the Catechism denouncing adultery is at least as strong as the language regarding fair economic behaviors. Would you actually endorse federal legislation that made pre-marital relations punishable by imprisonment? Really?

Also, from the Catechism: "Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical, or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services. Hence the principal task of the state is to guarantee this security, so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labors and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly. . . . Another task of the state is that of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the state but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society."