Well, now you're just spewing.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jobs-go-unfilled-as-the-economy-expands-1533677955

Jobs Go Unfilled as the Economy Expands
U.S. job openings reached 6.7 million last quarter, a 17-year high, with demand for workers growing the most in transportation

Transportation, as in drivers of busses, trucks, yes, even cars. Denver Colorado has had to curtail some bus routes because they haven't been able to fill 70 drivers jobs, jobs that are government jobs with a starting salary of $70,000.
Retail jobs, everything from restaurant jobs to retail clerks. Burger King just announced that they will start paying $100,000 annual salary for managers.
Business Service jobs, as in finance, accounting and so forth. Most will require a degree, but entry level jobs typically don't and starting salaries are on average $45,000.

Specialized training? What would that be, you know, to drive a bus? To manage a fast food restaurant? To manage a set of books?

Not much. The problem isn't the lack of degrees, or lack of training, it's a lack of applicants who can pass a background screen and drug test.

So, where's the justification for a Federal employee wage hike again?

 

Gas Shortage! The U.S. Air Force’s New Tanker Doesn’t Work

The U.S. Air Force just admitted that its new aerial tanker doesn’t work. But the service still wants to keep buying the flawed refuelers while also retiring older tankers that everyone knows work just fine.

The Air Force has decided it would deploy Boeing new KC-46 tanker only in the event of a major war, the service's chief of staff Gen. David Goldfein told U.S. Transportation Command and Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

Aviation Week was the first to report the news.

The Air Force won't, however, use the KC-46 in day-to-day operations supporting training or missions over the Middle East or Afghanistan. Not until Boeing can fix problems with the twin-engine tanker's boom system.

In defending the KC-46, Goldfein is signaling that the Air Force will stick with the KC-46 despite its problems. And, pending Congressional approval, also will push forward with a controversial plan to retire early 29 KC-135 and KC-10 tankers.

The Air Force in 2011 selected the KC-46 to replace a portion of its roughly 500-strong tanker fleet. As of early 2020 the service has around 30 KC-46s at training and test bases in California, Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Kansas.

The flying branch wants to acquire as many as 179 KC-46s. Each new tanker costs $240 million, counting development costs.

 

'A slap in the face': AT&T workers upset jobs slashed despite Trump tax cuts
Michael Sainato

The day after Paul Lorenzano found out he was being laid off from his job in January as an AT&T technician in Arcadia, California, the company sent out an email to all employees congratulating the workforce on AT&T’s profits and fiscal performance in 2019.

“We met or exceeded all of our commitments for the year. That’s thanks to a lot of good work on your part,” Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s CEO, said in the email.

Lorenzano was devastated.

Related: Starbucks worker says he was fired for union organizing and 'to create fear'

“That felt like a complete slap in the face, saying how great we were but here is your final pay stub because we did so great last year so we’re going to keep this money and not invest in back into the employment force like they said they would,” said Lorenzano, who worked at the company for over four years before receiving his termination notice, along with dozens of other AT&T DirecTV technicians across California.

It was not meant to be like this. Huge tax cuts, supported by AT&T, were meant to allow companies to hire more and pay better. But instead AT&T has cut 37,818 jobs in the US from when the Trump tax cut bill first went into effect in 2018 to the end of 2019, with more than 4,000 jobs cut in the last quarter of 2019, based on the company’s quarterly reports.

The company strongly supported the tax cut bill and promised workers a $1,000 bonus ahead of the bill’s passage amid claims of a hiring spree.

The bill, passed in December 2017, cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, saving AT&T an estimated $21bn initially, with an estimated $3bn in annual savings. Despite AT&T’s promises to invest these savings back into their workforce, the company has shed the number of employees since the bill went into effect, while capital investments have declined. In 2018, AT&T’s capital investments declined to $21.25bn, and the company announced plans to reduce it further in 2020 to $20bn, while rolling out a three-year plan to spend $30bn on stock buybacks.

For newly unemployed workers like Lorenzano that situation has added insult to deep injury.

“AT&T talks about its extensive relations with employees, how you can climb the ladder, that there’s room for growth. When I put all my chips in that basket, all of sudden it gets taken away and now I’m left with nothing. Right now I’m grasping for straws, panicking, trying to figure out what I’m going to do now,” he said.

Overall, workers have not benefited from the Trump tax cut bill, despite several corporations claiming bonuses and wage increases were due to the bill’s passage.

“Even at the time, this was clearly nothing but PR. The economic theory linking corporate tax cuts to wage gains was never supposed to occur immediately. Instead, it runs through a long chain of economic events, starting with increased investment,” said Hunter Blair, budget analyst with the Economic Policy Institute. “Without an uptick in investment, typical workers have no chance of benefiting from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And for the first time since the Great Recession, investment has declined for three straight quarters. With investment cratering, there’s no reason to believe typical workers will see the benefits that proponents of the bill promised.”

As AT&T has reduced investment, the company has continued cutting jobs in 2020, with the layoff of 200 technicians in California. The Communications Workers of America union has warned more than 30,000 additional job cuts or elimination in wages and benefits are coming if the proposals of AT&T’s hedge fund investor, Elliot Management, are enacted.

“I went into working as a technician and went into it for the long term. They lead you to believe that was possible. I invested four years. I wouldn’t do that if I thought otherwise,” said Sean Martinez, 26, one of the technicians who lost their job in Los Angeles. “From everything we hear business is good. Next thing you know we get a heads up that they’re making layoffs. They didn’t explain why.”

AT&T workers have also reported the company is forcing current employees to train foreign replacements as their jobs are being outsourced.

“Some people have already trained their replacements,” said an AT&T computer programmer in New Jersey who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “We are at the whim of management. One minute we are told we will be off payroll this year, then we are told we may be off payroll first quarter of next year.”

Another AT&T employee in IT explained they were recently laid off and contracted out to Accenture, where workers are currently training foreign replacement workers from India and eastern Europe.

“I’m seeing that at a wide scale right now. People need to know these jobs are being given away,” one of AT&T’s IT workers said.

Accenture did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

“Like any business, we must align our workforce with the needs of our customers and the business,” a spokesperson for AT&T said in an email. “To the extent possible, we manage staff adjustments through retirements and voluntary departures, and we help affected employees find other positions within the company. For those who can’t, we offer them severance pay and outplacement services.”

Sara Blackwell, a Florida based attorney who represents workers displaced by offshoring or workers on visas, explained AT&T is using contractors to train foreign replacements to save AT&T money while US workers are left to suffer.

“It saves the company millions in wages, pensions, healthcare and even taxes. The victim workers are frozen in fear of losing the ability to work in their industry if they speak to the media,” Blackwell said.

Yigael Chavez, a AT&T DirecTV technician for four years who was laid off on February, argued the job cuts are unnecessary.

“None of us want to see AT&T or DirecTV fail. We love what we do and what we have to offer. If the company actually backs up what they say and do it, it would create a good product, create jobs and income. Unfortunately we haven’t seen any of that,” Chavez said.

 

This thread doesnt interest me.....continue as you were

 

And the ever fraudulent preacher of the lie of conservatism @shootersa tries to accuse Democrats of throwing money at things.

Deficit Hits Record $235 Billion in February

• 
  
  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/deficit-hits-record-235-billion-222600064.html

 

Lying hypocrite.
No one in Washington gives a tinkers damn about the deficit, the debt, or your arrogant attitude. If you feel better blaming Shooter for the deficit or the debt or just for being a deplorable, have at it.

Everyone already discounts everything you say as a lie or as propaganda.

 

What I blame you for is being a glaring ,phony, lying, fraudulent, partisan, hypocrite that constantly preaches the lie of conservatism.

Small government Republicans scramble to adopt leftist ideas as America grapples with the coronavirus crisis

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/sm...america-grapples-with-the-coronavirus-crisis/

 

So, rear admiral butt nugget, Shooter does not agree with your endless, demented, whining and juvenile attacks on anyone or anything not in lockstep with your stupid, illogical, indefensible theory of government.

He also does not agree with your tactics that start with anything is allowed so long as it furthers our cause. Lie, cheat, steal, kill, whatever it takes.

Deal with it, sunflower.

 

The U.S. Treasury plans to borrow a record $3 trillion in the second quarter for coronavirus relief — already the largest-ever borrowing for any full fiscal year

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/t...scal-2019-2020-05-04?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo

 

For God's sake, do ya need to go diggin' up bones?

 

The ugly numbers are finally in on the 2017 Trump tax rewrite — and the rich made out like bandits

By David Cay Johnston, DCReport @ RawStory
Published 6 hours ago
on September 4, 2020

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/th...x-rewrite-and-the-rich-made-out-like-bandits/

 

Found as a lead to this post, while viewing Axios on HBO
@geneludwig
is passionate about economic inequality and the need for shared prosperity. His Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity has alarming evidence about the real rate of unemployment. https://www.lisep.org/
['True Rate' of unemployment=those earning less than a living wage, $20,000/yr]

 

Well, asVP Pence said when he debated Harris:
"You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts."

 

---
True!
Yet, I found it a compelling opinion which brought to mind our previous discussion on this..

 

'Cause, as I suspected: the supposed full-employment camouflages less than full time work that limits the income of the statistical "Full Time" data.

 

Nevertheless, Trump retains the support of most white blue collar workers.

"What fools these mortals be."

- William Shakespeare

 

Biden Defeated Trump to Win the Election. Here’s How Much You Would Pay Under His Tax Plan.




Note to readers: The Associated Press has called the presidential election for former Vice President Joe Biden. This article has been updated.

Tax policy took center stage in the final days before the U.S. presidential election. A lot gets accomplished—or partially accomplished, or at least attempted—through the tax code; this year, the two presidential candidates claimed it as a tool to lift the nation out of its deep and lingering economic slump.

Their ideas are, not surprisingly, starkly different: Former Vice President Joe Biden has a detailed plan to raise taxes on corporations and the top 1% of individual earners, and to provide a host of clearly outlined tax breaks to moderate- and lower-income families to ease the financial straits brought on by the pandemic and incentivize spending to help recharge the economy.

READ MORE

• How Their Plans Would Help—and Hurt—the Economy

In contrast, President Donald Trump argues that any tax increase for the wealthy would be ruinous to the economy. He says that he wants to keep the lower taxes enacted in 2017 in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA—which expires at the end of 2025—and pass even more tax cuts, but he hasn’t released details.


In any case, if the early indications of a divided Congress bear out, the resulting political gridlock could complicate plans for sweeping tax changes.

Here’s how each candidate’s tax policy would affect different segments of the population.


Top Earners
Biden plans to raise the top marginal individual income-tax rate from 37% to 39.6%, which was the top rate until the TCJA went into effect in 2018. Biden would essentially accelerate the expiration of the 37% rate—which applies to taxable income of more than $518,400 for individuals and $622,050 for married couples. All other brackets would remain at today’s levels: 35%, 32%, 24% 22%, 12%, and 10%. These rates are applied to taxable income, the amount after all deductions have been taken.

Top earners would also get pinched with a new Social Security tax, which, when combined with the Medicare tax, is referred to as the payroll tax. Currently, the 12.4% Social Security tax is applied to up to $137,700 of income. Salaried employees split the tax with their employers, paying 6.2% each. The employees’ share is deducted from their paychecks. Selfemployed workers pay the entire amount. Under the Biden plan, the payroll tax would also apply to income over $400,000, creating a donut hole in the policy: Income from $137,700 to $400,000 wouldn’t be subject to the levy.


“All of Biden’s proposals try to avoid a higher tax bill for taxpayers earning less than $400,000. ”

— Garrett Watson, Tax Foundation
Biden would also trim deductions for people with income of more than $400,000 in several ways.

His plan imposes a 28% cap on the value of itemized deductions. So, in the top tax bracket, every deductible dollar would be reduced by 28%, instead of 39.6%.

It also reinstates a phase-out of deductions referred to as the Pease Limitation for top earners, which effectively reduces deductions on every dollar by three cents.


Finally, owners of pass-through entities such as S corporations or partnerships with income of more than $400,000 would lose a 20% deduction enacted under the TCJA.


Trump’s plan for top earners is to extend the provisions under the TCJA beyond their scheduled expiration, maintaining the top tax rate at 37% and the 20% deduction for pass-through owners.

According to an analysis by The Tax Foundation, under Biden’s plan the nation’s top 1% of earners would see their annual after-tax income decrease by 11.3%; the next 4% of top earners would see after-tax income drop by 1.3%. Under Trump, by leaving the TCJA as is, the top 20% of earners would see a 2.4% increase in after-tax income.


Middle-Income Folks
Biden released his initial tax plan in April, but has updated it to address the financial hardships related to this year’s economic contraction. He proposes a long list of new or enhanced tax credits. Among them:

• A temporary increase (which would expire after the economy recovers) in the child tax credit from a nonrefundable $2,000 per child up to age 16 to a refundable $3,600 per kid up to age 6 and $3,000 for kids up to age 17. A refundable credit is paid as a refund, even if the person doesn’t owe taxes.


• An increase in the value of the child and dependent care tax credit from a maximum nonrefundable $2,100 for two or more children, to a maximum refundable $8,000.

• A $5,000 credit for informal caregivers.

• A $15,000 credit for first-time home buyers, and a credit to ensure that rent and utility bills don’t exceed 30% of monthly income.

• Expanding eligibility of the Earned Income Tax Credit to childless workers over age 65. Currently, the credit isn’t available to these taxpayers.


There is no intentional tax increase for folks earning less than $400,000 in Biden’s plan, but it is still a work in progress, says Garrett Watson, senior policy analyst at The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. “All of Biden’s proposals try to avoid a higher tax bill for taxpayers earning less than $400,000,” Watson observes. “If there are places where they result in a higher tax bill, they’ve said they’ll fix that.”

Read the sidebar: The Economy Is Slumping. Here’s How Trump’s and Biden’s Tax Plans Would Help — and Hurt.

As for Trump, he plans to extend the current law and has said he wants to cut taxes on the middle class, but hasn’t disclosed specifics. He has also vowed to push through permanent cuts to the payroll tax, which is used to fund Social Security and Medicare.

In August, the president issued an executive memorandum to allow employers to defer payroll taxes for anyone earning less than $4,000 biweekly for the rest of 2020. However, few companies and employers are taking advantage of the temporary measure, citing administrative complications.


According to the Tax Foundation’s analysis, Biden’s plan would increase after-tax income for the bottom 20% of earners by 10.8% through 2025; the next quintile would see a 3.6% bump.

Under the TCJA, the bottom 20% of earners are likely to see less than a 1% increase in after-tax income, and the next quintile, an increase of 1% to 1.5%.


Investors
Under Biden’s plan, investment profits that exceed $1 million would be taxed at regular income-tax rates of up to 39.6%, rather than the current highest capital-gains tax rate of 20%. For gains below $1 million, the current long-term rate—for investments held for more than one year—would still apply.

Biden’s plan keeps the capital-gains tax rate the same for the bottom 99% of earners: Married couples who have taxable income of less than $80,000 won’t owe any capital-gains tax; when taxable income is more than $80,000 but less than $496,600, a 15% tax applies to gains. Couples with income between $496,600 and $1 million would pay a 20% tax.


Trump says that he wants to cut capital-gains taxes. While he hasn’t issued any details, capital-gains tax cuts generally disproportionately favor wealthier folks, because they are far more likely to have money in regular, taxable brokerage accounts, and more money in them. Money held in individual retirement accounts, 401(k)s, and other tax-deferred plans are never subject to capital-gains taxes; investors generally don’t pay income tax on the contributions, gains grow tax-free, and money withdrawn is taxed at ordinary income-tax rates.


Benefactors and Heirs
Most of Biden’s plan is aimed at taxing the wealthy more, and reducing taxes for people earning less than $400,000 a year and who don’t regularly incur millions in capital gains. Much of his proposal is based on repealing the TCJA, and working from there. The same is true of his approach to the estate tax, but his approach to how assets are passed on after death is perhaps the most controversial, and least detailed, part of his plan.

The TCJA doubled the $5.49 million per person estate-tax exemption and adjusted it for inflation; now, any individual can leave an estate up to $11.58 million without incurring the estate tax. The figure is $23.16 million per couple. Biden plans to return the exemption to its 2009 level of $3.5 million per person, and raise the estate tax rate to 45% from 40%.

Estate tax is paid by the estate itself, before the assets are divvied up and given to the heirs. Typically, heirs don’t owe any tax on property they inherit, even if they sell it right away.


Here’s where things get a little surprising, and light on specifics: Biden’s plan would also eliminate the step-up in cost basis at death. Under current law, the cost basis, or purchase price, of assets is reset to the current market value at the owner’s death. Heirs may inherit an asset with massive embedded capital gains, but that capital-gains clock is reset to zero on the date of death, and tax is owed only on appreciation after that. For instance, if you inherit the home your parents bought for $50,000 and, at their death, was worth $800,000, your cost basis would be “stepped up” to $800,000. If you sold it right away, you would not owe any tax.

Biden’s plan changes that and raises a host of concerns and confusion. “Some in the industry are calling this a stealth estate tax, or a double tax,” says Ali Hutchinson, managing director at Brown Brothers Harriman. That’s because the levy is assessed based on the estate’s fair market value. Example: An estate of $6 million would owe estate tax on about $500,000—the $6 million minus the proposed $5.49 million exemption—before it is distributed to the heirs. They would inherit the property with the original cost basis, so, whenever they sold, they’d owe capital-gains tax on the profit off the original purchase price. In other words, the same assets would be taxed twice.

It is unclear in the language of Biden’s plan if capital-gains taxes would be owed upon death of their owner, regardless of whether the assets were sold, or if the taxes would be triggered when heirs sell the assets.

“This change would be a very big deal. It would change the way people manage portfolios,” Hutchinson says. “We have people going through crazy contortions to not realize gains toward the end of their lives—hedging strategies, borrowing. This could turn planning on its head.”


Clay Stevens, director of strategic planning at Aspiriant, doubts that the step-up will be eliminated. “They tried to get rid of it in the early 1980s, but realized it was an administrative nightmare,” he says. For taxpayers, finding the cost basis for all inherited assets is one problem. And for the Internal Revenue Service, “the assumption is the cost basis is zero, unless it can be proved otherwise.”

Typically, tax laws take effect in the calendar year after they are passed, so, if Biden is elected, it’s possible that new rules could be enacted in 2022—though there certainly will be some adjustments made from here.

 

CBO says $15 wage would have bigger budget impact than GOP tax cut provisions

https://www.rawstory.com/15-minimum-wage/