The October 10- October 16. 2016 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek has two interesting stories. On pages 10-11 discusses Trump's likely tax deductions that potentially wiped out something like 18 years of his income for federal tax purposes. The main point for us is that the tax provisions beginning in 1993 for the very rich are another indicator that the very rich are not treated like the rest of us. It appears that a chunk of the $916 million in loses was actually other people's money rather than Trump's. Unique tax benefits for the very rich in real estate allow them to call money they borrowed, but which banks or creditors forgave, also as deductible losses which can be spread over 18 years of taxes.
The Bloomberg article notes that almost exactly opposite for you and me would be the case of a bank forgiving $500,000 of loans to us. In that case, the IRS would treat that is income for you or me and we would have to pay income tax just as would be compensation for work. This seems to suggest that both a bank forgiving the Trump loans and Trump would be able to deduct loses. But in our case, we would not deduct anything even if our banker might. This means that the very rich in real estate and banking would escape three times as much income tax as you or I might pay in a similar but less astronomical situation.
About article number two. It is about the change in exchange rates between the US Dollar and the Mexican Peso on page 20. A US dollar now buys more Pesos than in the past. This means Mexicans, legal and illegal in the US, are sending more of money earned in the US back to Mexico. In fact, in the first 8 months of this year, $17.6 BILLION have been transferred across the border to Mexico. This represents a 6 percent increase over last year, and
Just for an idea of what that money sucked out of the US could do, consider a fence that costs about $1000 per linear foot or approximately $5,000,000 per mile. If my math is correct, dividing $5 million into $17.6 Billion means nearly 3,000 miles of fence could be built. In this regard, Trump seems to make a bit more sense even if the fences are economic rather than concrete and steel.
I get more than a little tired from all the propaganda about the benefits of diversity when much of the diversity just generates more and more costs for our economy and needless drag on society.
*** Stay tuned anyway--- Doug Wiken
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