RspecMAuthortah

A genuinely curious question to taxpayers who think they are funding the country:

With 33T debts and deficit spending being the norm, why should I pay taxes? How much of what we pay as taxes actually go to fund "the country"? Part of me still wants to believe I as a responsible citizen should feel good that I pay my taxes but it increasingly feels to me a very small part of what we pay as taxes actually go to things that matter and ultimately deficit spending will be the only way by the time I would be entitled to enjoy some of the social security benefits to fund them.

I live in a state that does not have income taxes.

> In any case, I am a strong believer in making a decision and following through with it (within reason), rather than stagnating forever in indecision and research. Some research yes, if necessary, but at some point you have to pick a direction and go.

I am the type that struggles with the indecisive behavior and had to pay serious opportunity cost because of this type of behavior. I struggle with indecisiveness even with seemingly small decisions such as picking a restaurant for dinner.

Any pointers on behavioral trainings to change that? In this context, even if I have (and I typically do) have also "gut feeling" about something, I struggle to follow through.

> Why would they start QE? Fed rate is at 4% right now, there's more than enough room to drop rates if an issue occurs.

Right but that will also increase demand and induce more inflation, no? So Fed will be perpetually stuck, in theory at least, to find a balance in their dual mandates.

That is the reason why all the monotheistic religions had fatwa on debt. And you can see how countries that are further moving away from the religious values at different points in histories also immediately adopt a debt based economy.

OK so what happens if the chip shortage lasts longer (due to war and commodity prices)and with plummeting sales and corporate earning (which will reduce tax receipts as well) the economy will enter recession? So then what is the game? Do Fed keep the economy in recession? Or do they start QE again?

I am baffled at the Fed messaging. A year ago Powell's keynote said the inflation is a supply side problem due to "transitory" issues. How does raising interest rates with "demand destruction" help supply side inflation due to war and chip shortages?

The sad truth about a lot of Canadian universities is this - they are entirely funded by foreign money (through international students). There is a specific university in Montreal named Concordia University which was so overwhelmingly structured to use this scheme it is almost called "Passport to Canada" back home - over 50% students there are international students. They charge the international students almost 5 times than normal Quebec students.

So it would not shock me if this whole thing is just aimed at taking the eyes off the simple fact that most universities education (esp graduate school) has become a way to legitimizing second degree slavery by bringing in foreign students with outrageous tuition scheme and at the same time providing someone graduating from Canadian university with little incentives since the wages are so low from TA. As long as there are countries with poor conditions people want to come here it will go on like that. Like all the things these academic elites do, there is no incentive to actually end discrimination.

This is part of the problem that the parent comment is referring to - putting all conservatives under the same umbrella. Tea party is different from most Trump voting working class. Conservatism in recent era has taken a very distinct shape and failure to understand this by elites have led to this very phenomenon the comment you replied to is referring to. How do you explain a non-negligible part of middle of America who voted for Obama voting for Trump?

As far as I am concerned, Tea Party acted in a capacity within the institution. The stuff we have seen under Trump including leaking secret military orders just to bring Trump down shows an absurd amount of collusion of institutional bureaucracy, media, corporate powers and security forces (such as FBI) which was unthinkable a decade ago and erodes the core values and credibilities of those institutions. For example, a decade ago FBI was a revered institution by conservatives who would go at length to support its over reaching acts and its the liberals who would question them. How did the table turn so bad that FBI is now actively being used as a force to silence opposition arresting anyone they like in the middle of night in their underwear while inviting media camera crews?

> You can argue either side to this, and make a good case.

Here is an argument. Fed is a thief. First it recklessly bailed out all the toxic banks and derivatives in 2008, then kept the interest rates low for too long propping up the asset prices, then basically printed money as if there is no tomorrow, and then the moment middle class started to see wage growth they gave the asset owning class opportunity exit with big margin as they retired and then started raising the rates. End the Fed.

I think Fed lost any credibility it had left after Greenspan. Now it's just a steep slide down. I mean, rates should have been raised in 2011. Remember when Powell tried this whole saga he is trying to do now back in 2018, there was a repo market shock and they had to backtrack. There is no way Fed can maintain its dual mandate of maximizing unemployment and keeping the inflation low. Because right now the US economy is about to enter a recession in response to a 0.75% interest rate hike so far, which is far less than what we need to do to curve inflation of 8%. A recession certainly means loss of jobs and there goes their dual mandate. There is no soft landing here as they are aiming hard, just as a year ago the inflation was not transitory yet they kept saying it.

If a Fed agency clearly does not satisfy its mandate that it was set out for, then what is the process of ending it? Can the public bring a Supreme Court case against the validity and thus force congress to dissolve? I mean we can't surely expect our incompetent representatives of congress to force any action when there is a revolving door between their sponsors like Citadel/Goldman/Pimco and Fed officials they advise and appoint.

I had smallpox growing up in a third world country, how protective would the immunity be going against that?

For my own curiosity.

> If you have financial assets worth over $2 million, you may have to pay a one-off exit tax calculated as a capital gains tax as if you sold all of your assets on the day you renounced.

Do you have to pay capital gains taxes on anything over $2 million or wholesale all capital gain?

> You have to attend an exit interview at your nearest U.S. consulate or embassy.

Can they reject your exit?

> In my city of Toronto, average real estate prices have gone from 2x average income in 1972 to 16x average income today. To continue growing at this pace they'd have to reach 128x average income by 2072.

Places like Toronto are generally an outlier. Part of it is due to high skilled worker immigration (to read it differently: more well off people emigrating to Canada) and high concentration of jobs in cities like Toronto.

I agree with your thesis although I think it has more to do with CAD losing its value compared to hard assets and a consequence of a decade with bad monetary policy.

Its actually much more endemic than this. To start off, Canada's service sector dominating economy means jobs are concentrated in cities like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal etc. So most people want to move and live those places. To make it worse, the government has plans to bring over 1.2M people over next 3-4 years time range as immigrants who again because of the fact that our economy is not diverse enough, tend to settle in those cities. Which makes the already heated housing market worse.

And everyone knows in those cities, local officials and councillors are all in builders' pockets. Large tier builders like Richcraft are routinely raising their prices by 5-10K per every release within last 2-3weeks since last 2020 and still they have all slots closing in 5 min of opening. They are keeping the supply artificially low and I imagine the inflation and supply chain issues are not going to make things any easier.

Bottom line, house prices continue to rise. The only thing that can temporarily put a halt to this is if we end up with rates as high as 10+%. Even then I suspect there are enough people with equities and large cash pool (hell our point based immigration system makes sure this is the case for all incoming immigrants)..

Middle class dream in Canada is over for most people. When you can't afford a decent place in Toronto or Vancouver with a tech salary you know its over.

President Biden may not, but Fed certainly is. Remember with the eurodollar system, Fed's role at this point is pretty much a liquidity provider for anyone and everyone which they did with unconditional access to swap lines etc. since April 2020 injecting trillions of dollars of liquidity into the system. The inflation we are seeing right now is largely a by-product of that. Fed with its utterly irresponsible course of acts over the past two years is directly responsible for this crisis. Their choice at this point is doomed to crash the US economy with recession if they want to do anything measurable to fight inflation. Which if they end up doing, will largely invalidate their mandate of full employment and thus the validity of their existence.

With regards to President Biden, he will have to be held responsible for applying all out sanctions which have not been able to achieve their objectives. If the goal of the sanctions was to stop the war, that has not happened in last 45 days. We don't know how difficult life has been for the average Joe in Russia from those sanction bites due to the censorship in media in both west and Russia. It certainly has however affected the life of the average Joe here and not for good. But, we are told this is at the expense of our moral victory.