5 thoughts on “Open thread: Predictions for 2014”

  1. A prediction: A not so “sane system of taxation” will be on “the agenda” in this election year. Those calling for a “flat tax” (1) are aligning themselves with the 1% (2) do not know history (3) are working against their own self-interests. The passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913 allowed for a federal income tax system. That Amendment was subsequently declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. It was no accident that the Congress set up a progressive or graduated income tax system. When expressed as a proportional relationship the gross tax to net income ratio is higher for low income earners in a flat tax situation than it is for high income earners. (The rich pay less.) Hence the progressive income tax system where the reverse is true. (The rich pay more.) Which is why the robber barons have been trying to flatten the tax system or eliminate it entirely for the past 100 years. Because Krugman and Reich are both part of the 1% their discussion of the “flat tax” will be convoluted and neither will take a discernible stand on the issue.

  2. Predictions:

    1. By act of Congress, billionaires will be declared as “living gods among us”. Naturally, the churches they establish in honor of themselves will be tax free, and will become on-shore tax havens.

    2. There will be serious mishaps in handling the fuel rods at Fukushima. We will not be told about it, but unmistakable clusters of death associated with it will be easily found.

    3. In some good news, the Trans Pacific Partnership will be found to be so onerous that it does not get fast track Congressional approval. However, to “balance” this development, the Keystone Pipeline will be found to be perfectly safe environmentally and will proceed. Subsequent major spills that sink to the bottom of nearby rivers making cleanup impossible will be declared to be “acts of god involving a non-oil substance”.

    4. In more good news, The Dow will hit 35,000. Subsequent major debt defaults will cause widespread panic and a collapse of the Dow to 2500. Congress will respond by declaring that the Dow shall again be 35,000, and shall increase by 1000 points in each subsequent month, because we said so. This policy will be declared to be in tandem with the Feds “quantitative easing” policy, and it shall be further declared that the economy is roaring back. Statistics will be generated to prove this.

    5. More cries of “let’s secede” will be heard throughout the land. The unusual thing will be these voices will be coming from outside the Old South and Vermont.

  3. Democrats will fuck up lots of things.
    Republicans will lie about it and pretty much everything else.
    Obama will continue to kill lots of people, possibly including a few more US citizens. Wedding parties optional.
    Repubs will nominate even more nutzoids for the US Senate.
    Approval of Congress will hit an all-time low of -8%.
    90% of Congress critters will be reelected.
    I will turn 65.

  4. More cries of “let’s secede” will be heard throughout the land. The unusual thing will be these voices will be coming from outside the Old South and Vermont.

    Similarly, there’s a Libertarian tech Billionaire (I’m capitalizing it because it’s a royal title deserving of the highest respect) currently pushing a proposal to split California into six unequally populated states.
    The smallest would be very red, and contain less than 3% of the state’s current population, but of course would have two senators. Altogether, even though CA is reliably blue at this point, the proposal would create three reliably red states, two blue ones, and one swing state.
    This would have the probable effect of adding 3 Democratic Senators and 7 Republican ones to Congress.

    Aren’t these techies so clever and visionary?

    Good thing it will never happen.

  5. Izquierdo – Thank you for capitalizing Billionaire; it’s about time these most productive people got the respect they deserve from the rest of us slackers.

    I hadn’t heard about the idea to massively “gerrymander” California on a statewide scale. It would seem to go hand-in-hand with the proposal to have about 10 counties in NE Colorado split off from the rest of that State because the local denizens think the rest of Colorado is too “blue”.

    Naturally, Colorado II would get its own two Senators from a “dead red” zone, thereby enhancing the political power of sparsely populated areas at the expense of cities, exactly as the Founding Fathers intended.

    The only trouble is – what if cities decide to split off in zones and declare their own statehood? Most likely all of them quite progressive? What if the other side wakes up and realizes it can play this game, too?

    The horrors.

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