According to CNN, Nixon was the first presidential candidate to release his tax returns. So, a presidential candidate releasing his or her tax returns is a relatively recent outcome.
Unless a candidate for political office has been indicted for tax fraud, she should not be required to release her tax returns. Most people don’t understand the tax code; especially as it applies to complex returns. Releasing a candidate’s tax returns generates more confusion than clarity.
In 2016, according to the IRS, 16.8 percent of Americans filing a federal income tax return - 150.5 million - had Adjusted Gross Income of more than $100,00. They paid 80.2 percent of the personal federal income taxes in 2016.
As an undergraduate and graduate student I drank the Cool Aide from numerous economics professors about the virtues of free or fair trade. I still lean that way.
But the U.S. has a serious trade imbalance. Last year it was in the neighborhood of $620 billion. And numbers like these have been stacking up for years. So, although it is a bit off topic, what can the railroads do to help fix the problem?
This is coming from a trucking company employee. We now for our drivers going into and out of Chicago on a regular basis for their own personal safety and protection have started offering Kevlar vests for any driver that wants one. Our local grocery warehouse that serves Chicago has gone even further for Chicago they are equipping their trucks with Kevlar in the body panels and polycarbonate windshields that can stop most handgun rounds.
Just who where was the Last President the Southside of Chicago.
You shouldn’t just check trade but take services and returned profit into account. I mean profits made by American companies abroad and sent home. If you consider these, trade and services are balanced between USA and EU according to American statistics.
A trade impalance is seldom the fault of the other country alone. It helps to look at the own shortcomings.
When wages increase faster than labor productivity competetivness gets lost over time. Companies start looking for cheaper labor. From union states to non-union states (GE and EMD locomotives) or to low wage countries (model railroading industry)
Regards, Volker
The $620 billion figure was a ballpark figure. The actual numbers, as published by the BEA, show similar outcomes. The deficit is the net of goods and services.
In 2016 the U.S. combined trade deficit was a tad over $502 billion, consisting of a goods deficit of $751 offset by a services surplus of $249 billion. In 2017 the combined deficit was $552 billion, consisting of a goods deficit of $808 billion offset by a services surplus of $256 billion.
American companies have not been returning overseas profits because of the adverse tax consequences.
What constitutes a service export is murky. For example, the software for Apple’s I phones is designed mostly in the U.S., but it is not counted as part of service exports.
When it comes to evaluating Presidents, it is a matter of Opinion, there is no mathematical formula for doing so.
It may be YOUR OPINION that Trump wasn’t the Best candidate in the 2016 Election, It is MY OPINION, that he was the Best Candidate that we had to choose from, and I shudder to think of the results, if Hillary had won.
In MY OPINION, Obama was the Worst President since Nixon.
We Each have our Own Opinions, if the Trump/America Haters want to throw unrelated comments in, I will reply, I’m not going to let such Bull Schitt go unanswered. If you want to make comments that ultimately get threads Locked/Deleted, that is your choice, it has happened before, and I Imagine that it will happen again. I don’t come here and make unrelated political comments, but I will respond to those that do, Locked/deleted threads are on you, not me.
BTW, Trump WON by Election, accept it/get over it.
Nope, I REPLIED to someone else’s comment, but hey, if you want to get a thread Locked/Deleted it’s your choice. Keep the BS political statements out of the threads, and I wont reply to them, and just maybe the threads wont get L/D.
Better get it from McDonald’s, support the President’s favourite restaurant!
And while there he may as well order the “Trump Special” to go, that’s 2 Big Macs, 2 Fillet-O-Fishes and a large chocolate shake. I’m not kidding, seriously, look it up.
Trump eats that order in one sitting, but it could feed me for 3 days.
Note that this comment is not political, I am merely commenting on the President’s dietary habits.
Often overlooked in this question is this: “According to a 2013 study the Rand Corp. prepared for the U.S. defense secretary’s office, Germany supports the U.S. troop presence through in-kind contributions such as land, free rent, infrastructure and construction, in addition to foregone customs duties and tax waivers. Basing its statistics on data from 2002, the study estimated that Germany offset about 33 percent of the costs of U.S. military personnel stationed there.”
The dollars all come home as investment - quite a bit to finance gov’t debt. So, it’s really a tiny problem economically. The way to fix it is to cut the budget deficit and get folks to save more. We just did the opposite, so…
All this trade craziness will disrupt supply chains in the short run and eventually lead to less efficient ones in the future. This means less production of goods, overall, in the short and long term. So, there will be less material for RRs to haul in any fashion, and what they haul may have different origins and destinations.
There will be very few winners, but a whole slew of losers…
The companies are already bringing production home to the USA already. How do I know this materials that we used to have put in overseas containers and yes we did do that for our customers well we are now putting almost 60% of those same custom blends into OTR trailers or Domestic containers for delivery here in the USA. That is in the last 19 months. We have also been told by our same customers that in the next 4 years expect less than 10% of our blended stuff to go overseas as they bring home production. Before I would say it was close to 60% by weight.