Political Discussion

Just read an opinion piece about Biden Canceling $10k of student loan debt.

And it does not look good for those of us hoping for anything, even if that is not nearly enough. WH aids have drafted an Executive Order which would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those who make less than $125,000 per year. However, Biden is unsure if he want's to sign it or not.

And all discussions about canceling student loan debt recently have turned to inflation and how canceling student loan debt will cause more inflation.

The basic takeaway is Biden will not cancel student loan debt. With the Midterm elections coming up the number one issue he faces is inflation. Any action he takes that increases inflation will not be seen as good, especially when they are trying to reduce inflation.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
Just read an opinion piece about Biden Canceling $10k of student loan debt.

And it does not look good for those of us hoping for anything, even if that is not nearly enough. WH aids have drafted an Executive Order which would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those who make less than $125,000 per year. However, Biden is unsure if he want's to sign it or not.

And all discussions about canceling student loan debt recently have turned to inflation and how canceling student loan debt will cause more inflation.

The basic takeaway is Biden will not cancel student loan debt. With the Midterm elections coming up the number one issue he faces is inflation. Any action he takes that increases inflation will not be seen as good, especially when they are trying to reduce inflation.
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What percentage of the debt of the entire US population is student loan debt? How will canceling it lead to inflation? Idiots!
 
While I am for helping those who only have 10K in student loan debt; that really is a completely inept response to the crisis. Those who only owe 10K are probably the ones most likely to be able to pay it off eventually. It's those that owe huge sums that the 10K will make no discernible impact on. Monthly payments won't change for anyone who is on an income-based repayment plan, and with interest rates being so high on federal student loan debt that 10K will be back within a year for a lot of borrowers. These are people who will probably be in debt from student loans for their whole life and they'll never get to within 10K of paying them off, so it's literally a waste of money for a lot of borrowers for whom it does nothing. For those who owe 10K or less, they're already the ones who likely had parents, scholarships, grants, and work programs helping pay their way and it's great for them, but the big borrowers mostly did not have help and this doesn't help them. It's so mind-numbingly stupid how he's trying to play political calculus with this when he and his predecessor are both probably too dumb these days to even play checkers. Plus he's been clear that he doesn't think young people deserve help, so I will not be surprised at all if this fails and part of me wants it to because if he does do it and young people still think he sucks the feckless Dems and evil Repubs will just take it as more evidence that helping people is a waste of government resources...even when they sabotage that help before it even happens.
 
Who actually really believes this? Especially given the head of BP described the company as “a licence to print money” earlier in the year. We need to put our foot on their necks and squeeze as much out as we can.

www.theguardian.com

Shell says windfall tax threatens North Sea oil and gas investment

Firm says Sunak’s levy creates uncertainty and asks for tax relief that covers investment in renewables
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
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nolalady said:
@Joe Mac is BoJo done for??

I don’t know how he gets out of this.
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He will not go unless he’s pushed and it will have to be a damn hard shove. It all depends on just how venal and self serving the Tory party decides to be, it’s they who will decide if his race is run.

There are three thoughts here for me here as to why he could stay.

They decide they’re fucked next time regardless and he stays and we still have at least 2 years till an election with a huge parliamentary majority. They could wreak ideologically driven havoc and straight jacket the next labour administration. Also losing an election from a position of one of the largest ever majorities would likely kill his political career which makes him less of a threat to what comes after.

They could also let him limp on to the next election in the hope that it’s far enough away that he will rebound, people will forget and he’s an excellent campaigner.

The third is who the fuck replaces him? The Tory party has an extraordinarily low level of talent for a government party that’s been in situ for 12 years. I can’t actually think of anyone who’d be better than him, and quite a few would be worse, and they all lack his “personality”.
 
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Joe Mac said:
He will not go unless he’s pushed and it will have to be a damn hard shove. It all depends on just how venal and self serving the Tory party decides to be, it’s they who will decide if his race is run.

There are three thoughts here for me here as to why he could stay.

They decide they’re fucked next time regardless and he stays and we still have at least 2 years till an election with a huge parliamentary majority. They could wreak ideologically driven havoc and straight jacket the next labour administration. Also losing an election from a position of one of the largest ever majorities would likely kill his political career which makes him less of a threat to what comes after.

The could also let him limp on to the next election in the hope that it’s far enough away that he will rebound, people will forget and he’s an excellent campaigner.

The third is who the fuck replaces him? The Tory party has an extraordinarily low level of talent for a government party that’s been in situ for 12 years. I can’t actually think of anyone who’d be better than him, and quite a few would be worse, and they all lack his “personality”.
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Yesh, so y’all are between a rock and a hard place. I have been getting a ton of partygate news over here and I get Trump flashbacks.
 
nolalady said:
Yesh, so y’all are between a rock and a hard place. I have been getting a ton of partygate news over here and I get Trump flashbacks.
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Yeah it’s all a consequence of the folly of labour sinking themselves in a pit of hard left self congratulatory nonsense with Corbyn. Regardless of some policies that sound good and appeal to my sensibilities he was utterly unelectable in every way. Handed Boris a super majority that allowed for the hardest of hard Brexits and a free pass for 5 years if the Tories didn’t cannibalise themselves, as they are wont to do.

There are definite Trump vibes with Boris but for all the self serving venal narcissism I actually don’t think that he actually an unashamedly evil person, or at least not in the sense that Trump was/is.
 
nolalady said:
Yesh, so y’all are between a rock and a hard place. I have been getting a ton of partygate news over here and I get Trump flashbacks.
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Partygate has definitely damaged Johnson, but he's not acted out of character, everyone who voted for him at the last election knew what he was like, so even though he has been politically wounded I think he still maintains enough support to survive. IMO If anything kills this government at the next election it will be the cost of living crises. In 12 months time the number of people in poverty will be huge and the middle class will have had their disposable income aggressively squeezed and if the Tory party win under these conditions then there really is no hope.
 
Joe Mac said:
Yeah it’s all a consequence of the folly of labour sinking themselves in a pit of hard left self congratulatory nonsense with Corbyn. Regardless of some policies that sound good and appeal to my sensibilities he was utterly unelectable in every way. Handed Boris a super majority that allowed for the hardest of hard Brexits and a free pass for 5 years if the Tories didn’t cannibalise themselves, as they are wont to do.

There are definite Trump vibes with Boris but for all the self serving venal narcissism I actually don’t think that he actually an unashamedly evil person, or at least not in the sense that Trump was/is.
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Hillary was a hard sell too which is how we got Trump. I am just nervous about Trump’s appeal currently and the Dems not being able to really put electable people up because they are all too beholden to their corporate donors.
Captainfog said:
Partygate has definitely damaged Johnson, but he's not acted out of character, everyone who voted for him at the last election knew what he was like, so even though he has been politically wounded I think he still maintains enough support to survive. IMO If anything kills this government at the next election it will be the cost of living crises. In 12 months time the number of people in poverty will be huge and the middle class will have had their disposable income aggressively squeezed and if the Tory party win under these conditions then there really is no hope.
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I think that’s what is going to be the biggest thing in our presidential election in 2024. National averages for gas prices are above $5 and people can’t pay rent. The other alarming thing is that house sales for houses under $400K have been dropping. This is indicating to me that people are unable to get into starter homes and investors are becoming less and less willing to be landlords. We are on the brink of a housing crisis.
 
nolalady said:
Hillary was a hard sell too which is how we got Trump. I am just nervous about Trump’s appeal currently and the Dems not being able to really put electable people up because they are all too beholden to their corporate donors.

I think that’s what is going to be the biggest thing in our presidential election in 2024. National averages for gas prices are above $5 and people can’t pay rent. The other alarming thing is that house sales for houses under $400K have been dropping. This is indicating to me that people are unable to get into starter homes and investors are becoming less and less willing to be landlords. We are on the brink of a housing crisis.
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We’ve now passed €2 a litre for petrol. I think that’s about €10 for one of your gallons. And that’s with a 20c temporary excise cut. Kinda scary because I don’t think we are close to peaking.
 
Joe Mac said:
We’ve now passed €2 a litre for petrol. I think that’s about €10 for one of your gallons. And that’s with a 20c temporary excise cut. Kinda scary because I don’t think we are close to peaking.
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This whole imperial / metric think is such bullshit. We need to standardise & all go metric. I'm always completely stumped with the difference between a US Gallon & a UK Gallon (apparently about 3/4 of a litre).

This is a good site for global comparison & trends

www.globalpetrolprices.com

Gasoline prices around the world, 01-Jan-2024 | GlobalPetrolPrices.com

Gas prices by country using official data sources.
www.globalpetrolprices.com www.globalpetrolprices.com

There is a potential upside, I see a real opportunity here to accelerate moving away from out reliance on Gas & Oil. As we start to become less dependent the prices will fall. The big challenge is where does the government recoup the tax from.
 
Andy said:
This whole imperial / metric think is such bullshit. We need to standardise & all go metric. I'm always completely stumped with the difference between a US Gallon & a UK Gallon (apparently about 3/4 of a litre).

This is a good site for global comparison & trends

www.globalpetrolprices.com

Gasoline prices around the world, 01-Jan-2024 | GlobalPetrolPrices.com

Gas prices by country using official data sources.
www.globalpetrolprices.com www.globalpetrolprices.com

There is a potential upside, I see a real opportunity here to accelerate moving away from out reliance on Gas & Oil. As we start to become less dependent the prices will fall. The big challenge is where does the government recoup the tax from.
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It is an opportunity but the government really has to box smart and support people in the transition because as things currently stand you will have rich people switching because they can afford to, and then further reaping the costs benefits, and poor people being even further jammed in a cycle of poverty because they can’t afford a new car or a new heating system, and the upgraded insulation to make it workable, and so those with the least will be stuck with the tax burden on their backs because they are in the worst position in terms of transitioning.

Part of me really wants to see us much more aggressively taxing income and moving away from taxing purchase and behaviours.
 
Joe Mac said:
Part of me really wants to see us much more aggressively taxing income and moving away from taxing purchase and behaviours.
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and taxing all income. At least in germany incoming from work is much more heavily taxed than income from financial transactions ( stock, rent etc.) which also helpd the wealthy because the middle class and lower simply have their sole income from their labour
 
Jan said:
and taxing all income. At least in germany incoming from work is much more heavily taxed than income from financial transactions ( stock, rent etc.) which also helpd the wealthy because the middle class and lower simply have their sole income from their labour
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Yes capital gains tax is generally at a much lower rate than income tax in most countries that I have encountered. With an exception for the main dwelling house capital gains should be taxed as income.
 
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