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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 16th, 2023

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  • It was always short sighted tax policy. We’re just living with the blowback.

    But in 1954, apparently intending to stimulate capital investment in manufacturing in order to counter a mild recession, Congress replaced the straight-line approach with “accelerated depreciation,” which enabled owners to take huge deductions in the early years of a project’s life. This, Hanchett says, “transformed real-estate development into a lucrative ‘tax shelter.’ An investor making a profit from rental of a new building usually avoided all taxes on that income, since the ‘loss’ from depreciation canceled it out. And when the depreciation exceeded profits from the building itself—as it virtually always did in early years—the investor could use the excess ‘loss’ to cut other income taxes.” With realestate values going up during the 1950s and ’60s, savvy investors “could build a structure, claim ‘losses’ for several years while enjoying tax-free income, then sell the project for more than they had originally invested.”

    Since the “accelerated depreciation” rule did not apply to renovation of existing buildings, investors “now looked away from established downtowns, where vacant land was scarce and new construction difficult,” Hanchett says. "Instead, they rushed to put their money into projects at the suburban fringe—especially into shopping centers.

    http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/in-essence/why-america-got-malled




  • I actually think you had a flawed process if you were projecting a Trump win in 2016, getting that “right” doesn’t impress me. Comey re-announcing new emails was 11 days before the election, there wasn’t time to see what people thought of it.

    Edit: The downvoters don’t remember the election. Clinton was winning basically every poll, her numbers peaked after the Access Hollywood tape and dropped from that peak, she was still winning polls by 4 points on election day. There are vagueries of voting behavior based on weather in different locations and the vote was super close in the swing states. Even with perfect state by state information adjusted by poll error, it was less than 50/50 Trump would win. It was a bad prediction.

    It happened to happen, because things with 40% odds happen 40% of the time, but predicting the 40% outcome is bad process.



    1. It’s a very progressive district, that’s how she got elected in the first place. This is not a surprise.

    2. I bet my politics fit closer to the other guy, but I’d still vote for AOC between the two because she has a national influence and disproportionate power in the Caucus. If you’re actually voting to influence Congress towards helping your district in particular, AOC might get that done even if it’s secondary to her national political project. Some moderate guy in a safe D seat would absolutely never get anything for your district.





  • I know what I’m about to say is not going to get a ton of love here buuuut…

    I’d argue that if you’re a former president, you SHOULD get deferential sentencing. Too much potential for abuse otherwise. Imagine if Trump won in 2024 and suddenly Biden’s document retention case got re-opened and he got the harshest possible sentence.

    Similarly but separately, major party nominees should get deferential sentencing. It’s an influence on the political process, and you should err on the side of having less influence. If you lock up a nominee so they can’t campaign, it’s not really a fair election. ESPECIALLY when it’s a crime from 8 years ago.

    Like, still get sentenced within the guidelines of the crime, but just towards the more lenient edge. If someone is guilty of murder you can’t NOT put them in prison. But if the penalty for the crime doesn’t require prison, it’s quite a leap to get to prison on a former president, current nominee.



  • It was very frustrating that just like what happened with “fake news” which was originally used to describe false news articles generated usually to help Trump, the same thing happened with the concept of a two-tier justice system. Originally describing how wealthy people like Trump don’t get the same justice that poor people do, now Republicans are trying to use it to describe Republicans getting charged for things Democrats wouldn’t be.





  • Didn’t seem like he attacked Jews really, but he made it very clear he thinks of them as an “other” who are unified in their thought process and aligned with Israel.

    Like with white people he’s trying to win as many white votes as possible so he goes to a white working class coal mine in West Virginia and a (non-union but middle class) car part manufacturer in Michigan and a rural state fair.

    American Jews are just the US-based Israel contingent, to him. Israel has turned extremely right wing and the leader Bibi likes Trump, why aren’t US jews voting 100% in line with “their leader?”