Market politics

[neroden]

I could say Doofus, but I won't, you obviously leave out Trump's plan B, using nukes.

First of all, it's documented from studies that most of the people in charge of the nuclear weapons would flat out refuse to use them *even in a "The Soviets have already launched" scenario. Even more would refuse in a first strike scenario.

Secondly, the high-level military would be doing their best to stop it.

Third, of course, firing even one nuclear first strike would be the end of the United States. Russia's promised that, and China, the UK, France, India, and Pakistan would all cooperate with Russia. Half of the states of the US would secede immediately. Canada would disconnect their part of NORAD and take local control immediately.

Possibly would mean the end of world civilization too, of course. My point is that simply that the US would not survive.

There's a real reason among some Evangelicals to consider him the Anti-Christ.

Yes.

The lunatics pushing for war with Iran are, well, lunatics. They're also traitors to the US, in my opinion.

 

[dmckinstry]

There's a real reason among some Evangelicals to consider him the Anti-Christ.

Which is why some will vote for him anyway. At least those that want to hasten Armagedden.

 

[lolachampcar]

So the lunatics in the White House or the Pentagon appear to be illegally sending surveillance drones over Iran, which Iran promptly and appropriately shot down. (I do not believe the Pentagon's claims that they were over international waters; the Pentagon has a very long and well-documented history of lying about this.)

This is a very certain assessment. How do you know who is lying between these two? I'm not saying you are right or wrong; I'm only curious how you KNOW.

 

[ggr]

Because many large investors will be dumping stock at once to pay the tax, the stock market will go down around tax time and instead of having to sell 2% of their stock, they might have to sell 3-4%. Because most American investors will be selling and not buying, foreign buyers with long term goals will be buying up the dumped stock.

One of the biggest one-day drops of the DotCom bust was April 15, 2000, when lots of Silicon Valley investors realized they had to pay estimated tax on all their stock sales.

 

[wdolson]

Couldn't the BOD grant new options to compensate for the decreasing share ownership? Elon Musk is a unique case, but most other Founders don't reject a salary AND have all their wealth tied up with a single company. The non-founding CEO's are even less invested.

Even for passive investors, 2% per year means you'll get poorer each year, but at an asymptotic rate (tax owed would be 2% of a smaller amount each year, unless the investments appreciate faster than 2% annually).

I would be OK if there was an exemption for wealth that comes from the value of stock in a company that the person has created themselves. Not inherited stock wealth or wealth from trading stock, or buying an established company.

This is a very certain assessment. How do you know who is lying between these two? I'm not saying you are right or wrong; I'm only curious how you KNOW.

The US has been flying reconnaissance flights over potential enemies since the early days of the cold war. The Iranians have brought down US drones before. It's not proven, but I would say it's highly likely that the drone was over Iranian territory.

One of the biggest one-day drops of the DotCom bust was April 15, 2000, when lots of Silicon Valley investors realized they had to pay estimated tax on all their stock sales.

There is that too, though I would think that there would be a valid claim of double taxation to charge income tax on the sale of stock to pay a wealth tax.

I suspect any wealth tax would end up in front of SCOTUS and there is a reasonably good chance it would be shot down anyway. Anything that also charged income tax on activities that were done just to pay the wealth tax would almost certainly be thrown out.

 

[neroden]

This is a very certain assessment. How do you know who is lying between these two? I'm not saying you are right or wrong; I'm only curious how you KNOW.

I remember the US claiming that they were in international airspace when sending spy planes over Russia, Nicaragua, China, etc. etc. etc... and being proven wrong eventually. It's just happened way too many times in the past. The Pentagon has a *track record* of this.

The Pentagon even has a track record of violating Iranian airspace specifically.
Iran–U.S. RQ-170 incident - Wikipedia

The Pentagon even has a record of murdering civilians by shooting down an Iranian civilian airliner inside Iranian airspace, after sending a US Navy ship into Iranian territorial waters.
Iran Air Flight 655 - Wikipedia

And the Pentagon lied about that. They only admitted three years after the fact that they'd invaded Iranian territorial waters.

(Even though the US ended up paying large compensation to the victims, the Pentagon *still* hasn't admitted wrongdoing, despite it being essentially proven, and gave awards to the criminal idiot who shot the plane down.)

Iran, on the other hand, doesn't have any track record of shooting down things outside its borders. They tend to follow international law.

I could be mistaken about this --, but that would require that the Pentagon had cleaned up its act, which seems ridiculous. The Pentagon history of invading foreign airspace and lying about it is long and well proven, as I said.

The Pentagon has no legitimate reason to be flying their drones in the Persian Gulf anyway.

(P.S. Knowing history helps a lot with figuring out who's lying. The one who has repeatedly lied about such things in the past is probably the liar.)

 

[neroden]

There is that too, though I would think that there would be a valid claim of double taxation to charge income tax on the sale of stock to pay a wealth tax.

Double taxation is clearly both legal and constitutional. Ever looked at the Greenmail tax?

I suspect any wealth tax would end up in front of SCOTUS and there is a reasonably good chance it would be shot down anyway. Anything that also charged income tax on activities that were done just to pay the wealth tax would almost certainly be thrown out.

There's a bizarre Constitutional rule about direct taxes vs. indirect taxes, but if it was "apportioned among the states according to population", a federal wealth tax would in fact be clearly constitutional. If not it would require an amendment.

Most likely the wealth tax would be dropped in favor of an income tax with the income tax rate being dependent on wealth -- this would be found constitutional under the Income Tax Amendment.

 

[Intl Professor]

(Even though the US ended up paying large compensation to the victims, the Pentagon *still* hasn't admitted wrongdoing, despite it being essentially proven, and gave awards to the criminal idiot who shot the plane down.)

The commander of the US ship was disciplined, court martial and dishonorable discharge (I don't remember which or both).

 

[Intl Professor]

I remember the US claiming that they were in international airspace when sending spy planes over Russia, Nicaragua, China, etc. etc. etc... and being proven wrong eventually.

The first real evidence was shooting down Francis Gary Powers' U-2. Despite the embarrassment Khrushchev offered an alibi to Ike in order to save a Paris summit. "You could say you didn't know about those flights." But Ike did the honorable thing.

 

[neroden]

The commander of the US ship was disciplined, court martial and dishonorable discharge (I don't remember which or both).

Nope

William C. Rogers III - Wikipedia

Given the Legion of Merit instead. Allowed to retire "honorably" three years later.

His family car was pipe-bombed, which frankly is unsurprising given that he had gotten away with mass homicide through (at *best*) negligence. When the government rewards criminals, people will go vigilante.

 

[neroden]

I started reviewing the history of the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq was backed by the US *and* the Soviets *and* the French *and* the British *and* Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and was using poison gas and attacks on civilians, and had a better army to start with. Iran had three disorganized and uncoordinated army groups, and had just finished a revolution, and its only real allies were Syria and Libya. (Though they did manage to buy arms from the US thanks to the Iran-Contra affair -- Reagan's administration was happy to sell weapons to both sides, as were several other countries. North Korea and China also sold weapons to Iran.) Eight years later, Iraq was finally pushing Iranian forces out of Iraq...

Yeah. Invading Iran is a very, very stupid idea.

 

[Unpilot]

The problem is we are looking at a very very stupid POTUS and a very hawkish (and stupid)National Security adviser in J Bolton.
Note that Bolton is also a chicken hawk John R. Bolton - Wikipedia

Bolton was a supporter of the Vietnam War, but purposely avoided military service in Vietnam.[37][31] During the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, Bolton drew number 185. (Draft numbers were assigned by birth date.)[38] As a result of the Johnson and Nixon administrations' decisions to rely largely on the draft rather than on the reserve forces, joining a Guard or Reserve unit became a way to avoid service in the Vietnam War, although 42 Army Reserve units were called up with 35 of them deployed to Vietnam shortly after the Tet offensive in 1968–69.[39][40] Before graduating from Yale in 1970, Bolton enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard rather than wait to find out if his draft number would be called.

These men are leading the whole world to the brink....one a abject idiot the other a little man hell bent on showing how "tough" he is.

 

[Ad Astra]

So the lunatics in the White House or the Pentagon appear to be illegally sending surveillance drones over Iran, which Iran promptly and appropriately shot down. (I do not believe the Pentagon's claims that they were over international waters; the Pentagon has a very long and well-documented history of lying about this.)

If the White House instigates war with Iran, it would be suicide. Every military analyst says so; every geopolitical analyst says so.

If they started a self-destructive war with Iran, the best case outcome would be for 2/3 of the Senate to vote to invoke the War Powers Act, declare peace with Iran, and then quite probably impeach Trump and remove him from office.

If the Senate didn't do its job (very likely), the worst-case outcome would be the dissolution of the United States -- the vast majority of the people want nothing to do with a fourth Middle Eastern quagmire war, and the state governments would eventually be forced to refuse to cooperate with the idiotic war (withdrawing the National Guard from the President's authority, cutting power to federal military bases, etc.)

----
(For those who doubt how much of a disaster a US attack on Iran would be: The degree to which the US would lose is overspecified.

First of all, the US would immediately lose access to Turkey; that's the only political move for the Turkish government, and they'd take it. Pakistan would almost certainly shut down US access, since it already did so once and had to be bribed heavily to reopen access. Russia would most certainly help shut down US supply chains, and can completely shut down all traffic for the US from the north of Iran. (Though they might supply Iran with support.) This would lead to the internship of every US soldier trapped in Afghanistan.

Russia already has Syria as a client state and would probably kick the US out. Anti-US sentiment would destroy the ability of the US to operate in Iraq and Syria, though US soldiers might be able to escape through Saudi Arabia. European countries would be under very strong pressure to stop assisting the US, and so the supply chain from the West would probably be dead too.

Millennium Challenge 2002 demonstrated that Iran can probably sink 1/3 of the US Navy in a week. They have already landed and dissected previous US drones; they can probably hack and control some of them. They've proven they can shoot these drones down. Everyone agrees that they can shut the Persian Gulf pretty much immediately.

Even if the US somehow got land forces into Iran, there is nowhere near enough of an army to occupy even a tiny bit of the country; the rule of thumb for *easy* occupations would require 4 million ground troops, and this would be a hard occupation. And the US army already has awful morale, because nobody wants to be sent to the quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq. Adding a third, even worse quagmire would lead to even lower recruitment and substantial desertion and refusal to deploy. Plus, if trying to attack Iran, the US couldn't really move the troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, which are contiguous.... so basicall ythey'There's no way the US could ever get a large enough occupation force.

And of course, the US army is essentially useless -- a Potemkin army full of overpriced hardware (paying for military contractors' vacations to Vail) which refuses to update its tactics, strategy, grand strategy to fit reality.

Saudi Arabia is on the verge of overthrow, and having the US send Christian troops there to attack Muslims -- even if they are attcking Shia Muslims -- has inflamed popular sentiment there in the past, to the point where the Saudis have really made great efforts to get the US out of their bases and to make them hide when they are there. So it's unlikely the US could operate from Saudi bases for long before the country became a hostile environment. The extremely under-equipped Yemeni opposition to the Saudis was capable of striking Riyadh already.

Congress already told Trump to get the US out of Yemen and he refused. Congress will have even more votes to tell Trump to get out of Iran. Funding is not going to be forthcoming. Pretty much everyone recognizes the fake gin-up of lies to excuse war from the Iraq War, and it's not going to be effective this time -- the last lie campaign was too recent.

Trump doesn't even want to start a war in Iran.

TLDR: Iran has every military advantage, the US has none, and no domestic or international support.)

In your view, given the circumstances, what is the best possible outcome with regards to the current tension with Iran? Also, assuming Iran was in fact not involved in the tanker attacks, as the Iranian government has claimed, what do you think the strategy is behind the US claims that Iran is culpable for the attacks?

 

[S'toon]

In your view, given the circumstances, what is the best possible outcome with regards to the current tension with Iran? Also, assuming Iran was in fact not involved in the tanker attacks, as the Iranian government has claimed, what do you think the strategy is behind the US claims that Iran is culpable for the attacks?

Bolton has been pushing for war with Iran since 1979. Bolton has never met a situation that he thinks can be solved with a war.

You folks wouldn't have been in this situation if Trump hadn't withdrawn from the Iran nuclear dear a year ago. Every international body has been saying that Iran has been in compliance.

 

[Intl Professor]

Nope

William C. Rogers III - Wikipedia

Given the Legion of Merit instead. Allowed to retire "honorably" three years later.

His family car was pipe-bombed, which frankly is unsurprising given that he had gotten away with mass homicide through (at *best*) negligence. When the government rewards criminals, people will go vigilante.

Thanks. I stand corrected.

 

[wdolson]

Double taxation is clearly both legal and constitutional. Ever looked at the Greenmail tax?



There's a bizarre Constitutional rule about direct taxes vs. indirect taxes, but if it was "apportioned among the states according to population", a federal wealth tax would in fact be clearly constitutional. If not it would require an amendment.

Most likely the wealth tax would be dropped in favor of an income tax with the income tax rate being dependent on wealth -- this would be found constitutional under the Income Tax Amendment.

I was not aware of 26 US Code 5881, but searching around I can't find that it has ever been challenged in court, which is where the question of whether it was illegal or not would be settled. I did find a Villinova Law Review article from 1990 criticizing it as an improper application of tax law. I only scanned the article, but it might not stand up to the legal challenge.

What happened were the greenmailers changed strategy to other things rather than fight the tax. Apparently it's also fairly easy to avoid the tax because the definitions of the conditions is very narrow.

A wealth tax would affect all the richest people in the country and the top tier tax attorneys int he country would be taking it all the way to SCOTUS. Throwing $50 mil at a court challenge is chump change to avoid paying that much in tax every year for the rest of your life.

I think there are better ways to break the capital these people are holding loose that won't be fought as vigorously or at all. Change the tax code to make the tax rate on investments that actually create jobs in the US very low and those that don't are taxed as regular income. These people would be so desperate to get the lowest tax rate they will be doing all sorts of schemes to create jobs with their capital. Some will not pan out, but their capital will end up mostly in workers pockets for a while.

In your view, given the circumstances, what is the best possible outcome with regards to the current tension with Iran? Also, assuming Iran was in fact not involved in the tanker attacks, as the Iranian government has claimed, what do you think the strategy is behind the US claims that Iran is culpable for the attacks?

Different players have different motives. For Trump, everything Obama did was terrible, so if Obama succeeded at anything, he has to tear it down. That's why he wants to kill the ACA. Iran was Obama's best foreign policy achievement, so Trump has to do the opposite.

Bolton is a New American Century idiot. Most of them crawled back under a rock after the Iraq war, but Bolton is too stupid to shut up and he's continued his agenda. The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) was a 90s think tank run by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and some other people who ended up in the GW Bush administration. They argued that because the US was the last superpower, the US should do what it wants and invade who it wants on the world stage. The Iraq War discredited them, but Bolton is a true believer.

Some other in the administration think a war with Iran would be a hail Mary to save the 2020 election for Trump. They are realists about how badly Trump's prospects look for 2020. But the US has never voluntarily switched presidents during a war and pushing the Afghanistan war back into the headlines is not a great idea so they are ramping up Iran instead. They think that if Trump gets into a war with Iran that it will boost Trump's re-election chances, but Trump doesn't think it's a good idea because he doesn't know how to direct a war. He's an abject failure at running a business. A war will also take headline space away from Trump, which he can't stand.

Finally there are US allies chomping at the bit to take out Iran. Saudi Arabia is the center of Sunni Islam and Iran is the center of Shiite Islam. The two hate each other and it goes back to when Mohammad died. There was a major split in how to replace him and the two schools of thought formed. They've been hostile ever since.

Iran has also been a regional antagonist to both Saudi Arabia and Israel.

And then there is oil. Taking a major supplier offline and increasing the threat to other suppliers will jack the price of oil and help Saudi Arabia's bottom line. As @neroden wrote a couple of weeks ago, the Saudis are desperate for cash and need oil prices to go up. A number of Republican backers would make out like bandits if the price of oil went up too.

 

[neroden]

In your view, given the circumstances, what is the best possible outcome with regards to the current tension with Iran?

BEST outcome?

Trump fires the Pompeo/Bolton axis. The US backs down and stops harassing Iran. The US rejoins the nuclear supervision deal.

I think the Iranian government is very much amenable to that.

More likely good outcome? The US backs down without rejoining the nuclear supervision deal and Iran backs down on leaving the deal (so far, the US has violated the deal, but Iran has complied), and "talks" continue until the next US election removes Trump.

Also, assuming Iran was in fact not involved in the tanker attacks, as the Iranian government has claimed, what do you think the strategy is behind the US claims that Iran is culpable for the attacks?

What was the strategy behind claiming that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction? Same playbook.

What was the strategy behind the claims of the "Second Gulf of Tonkin incident" (which never happened)? Same playbook. (At least that time the first incident did happen.) A combination of desire to cause a war, self-delusion, and paranoia.

 

[neroden]

Some other in the administration think a war with Iran would be a hail Mary to save the 2020 election for Trump. They are realists about how badly Trump's prospects look for 2020. But the US has never voluntarily switched presidents during a war

I believe the election of Barack Obama is an exception to that. The decision of Johnson to resign, arguably.

In fact, I think this is perhaps mostly because most US wars didn't actually span an election season. Most of the Indian wars are exceptions, and so's the Moro Rebellion.

and pushing the Afghanistan war back into the headlines is not a great idea so they are ramping up Iran instead. They think that if Trump gets into a war with Iran that it will boost Trump's re-election chances, but Trump doesn't think it's a good idea because he doesn't know how to direct a war.

At least he knows that. I think he also knows that war is bad for the hotel business.

If the Iranians are savvy, they'll offer Trump a Trump Hotel in Tehran, and that'll seal the deal.

He's an abject failure at running a business. A war will also take headline space away from Trump, which he can't stand.

His top priority is getting people to pay attention to him. Yes.

Finally there are US allies chomping at the bit to take out Iran. Saudi Arabia is the center of Sunni Islam and Iran is the center of Shiite Islam. The two hate each other and it goes back to when Mohammad died. There was a major split in how to replace him and the two schools of thought formed. They've been hostile ever since.

It's worse than that. The UAE, who are mostly Sunni, and Pakistan, which is mostly Sunni, and Turkey and the Kurds, who are mostly Sunni, generally get along fairly well with Iran. But they're all *normal* Sunni.

Saudi Arabia is run by Wahhabbis, a Sunni cult which is considered heretical by the other Sunnis. They're very fragile and unpopular as a religious authority, so they want to whip up anti-Shia sentiment in order to try to legitimate themselves in the eyes of other Sunnis. The Wahhabbis are also iconoclasts who are hell-bent on destroying ancient shrines and archaeological sites related to the Prophet and his family -- this is really very unpopular among non-Wahhabbi Sunnis.

Iran doesn' t have any such agenda; Iran practices traditional Shia, which has decentralized religious authority (there are *lots* of imams and ayatollahs who have their own views) and so it isn't "religiously insecure" in the way the Saudi religious leadership is.

For background, Shia is the equivalent of Protestantism in governance; Sunni governance was the equivalent of the Roman Catholic Church -- until the last Caliph died and there was no consensus on a successor. The Saud family have basically been trying to act as Caliphs, but the rest of the Sunni world rejects that because the Saudis' religious leadership, the Wahhabbis, are heretical according to the traditional Sunni jurisprudence.

So you see how fragile the Saudi position is.

Iran has also been a regional antagonist to both Saudi Arabia and Israel.

And then there is oil. Taking a major supplier offline and increasing the threat to other suppliers will jack the price of oil and help Saudi Arabia's bottom line. As @neroden wrote a couple of weeks ago, the Saudis are desperate for cash and need oil prices to go up. A number of Republican backers would make out like bandits if the price of oil went up too.

 

[neroden]

OT geopolitics

Despite the recent last minute cancellation of the attack on Iran, I still think there are good odds we wind up in a war with Iran.

I've said it before, but that would be likely to be the end of the United States.

The United States has not fought a country with a population the size of Iran since World War II ended: it's comparable to imperial Germany or Japan in manpower and resources, if not in industrial base.

Vietnam was half the population (even if you add in Cambodia and Laos), the US Army was twice as large as it is now, we actually had support from a meaningful percentage of the Vietnamese population (we'd get 0% support in Iran), and the US lost. Iraq was less than half the population, and the US basically lost. Afghanistan, again, less than half the population of Iran, and the US basically lost.

On top of that, Iran would be backed by both Turkey and Russia, and quite probably Pakistan, and (probably quietly) China. The US would be abandoned by Europe, which is on Iran's side due to the US breaking treaties and trying to strongarm Europe, while Iran kept its treaties. And most of the US population wants nothing to do with a third Middle Eastern quagmire, while Iranians would be *defending their homes*. And the US is already bogged down and losing in two adjacent countries.

Plus, in the war game the US ran in 2002, the side representing Iran sank a third of the US Navy, and the US response was to tell the general playing the Iranian side "Don't do that" -- the US military is not a serious military force, it's a scheme to enrich military contractors (as you can see from the worthless $130 million drone which the US sent into Iranian airspace, which was promptly shot down). Iran, meanwhile, essentially defeated Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war despite Iraq being backed by everyone from the US to the Soviets *and* illegally using poison gas.

Congress already voted to tell Trump and the Military-Industrial Complex to stop backing Saudi Arabia and get out of Yemen. The vote against a stupid invasion of Iran would probably be stronger. If it wasn't and the executive branch ran this destructive war against Congressional instructions, I think we'll see it killed in the budget. If they just start stealing money to run such a stupid war, I think we'd start seeing governors refusing to give the President access to the National Guard.

I hope sanity prevails and the US avoids destroying itself in another really stupid war it can't win. Iran has been a peace-promoting country when it isn't being actively attacked, so they'll happily remain peaceful if the US backs off. (By contrast, the Saudis are the biggest promoters of Islamic terrorism in the world, and the only government which is arguably a bigger promoter of terrorism in general is the US.)

 

[Mader Levap]

I've said it before, but that would be likely to be the end of the United States.

Amusing, delusional hyperbole.

Iraq was less than half the population, and the US basically lost. Afghanistan, again, less than half the population of Iran, and the US basically lost.

Basically - such a nice weasel word. Do you deliberately conflate military campaign (that was successful) and subsequent occupation of country (and THIS was actual cluster***)?

Plus, in the war game the US ran in 2002, the side representing Iran sank a third of the US Navy, and the US response was to tell the general playing the Iranian side "Don't do that"

I see you assume that since 2002, 17 years later, USA did nothing to improve that state of affairs. I also wonder why you didn't picked any more recent example (it is not like USA wargames ended in 2002). Maybe because they didn't have such spectacular case of fail?

I hope sanity prevails and the US avoids destroying itself in another really stupid war it can't win.

I will agree with this, in sense that they will not be able to occupy country. They CAN win war, especially if it will be something like surgical strikes at nuclear installations, military bases etc. You do not need boots on ground or occupation for this kind of thing. This still would down their reputation another notch, though.

Iran has been a peace-promoting country

Activities like supporting Houthi in Yemen and other support for groups considered terrorists says otherwise. In other words, "peace-promoting country" Iran has no problem with participating in proxy wars. Your "peace-promoting country" is also inherently hostile to Israel. Makes great line for propaganda booklet, though.

Oh, one more thing. What is your opinion about North Korea? Remember, this country is hostile to USA.