MarketWatch - Opinion: The tax cut isn't trickling down to workers

[Roland99]

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act isn’t just wasteful, it’s harming the economy and workers
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-tax-cut-isnt-trickling-down-to-workers-2018-12-03

...

Real wage growth has been largely nonexistent for the average worker since the tax bill passed. Production nonsupervisory workers only saw a 0.2% year-over-year increase in average hourly earnings last quarter.

The people who did benefit, however, made out like bandits. Analysts from the Tax Policy Center estimate that the top 1% of earners will receive a larger share of the tax cut this year than the entire bottom 60% combined, with the average one-percenter receiving a windfall of more than $50,000 — a result of the enormous tax cuts for corporations and large pass-through businesses, which are disproportionately owned by the wealthy.

Unfortunately, the authors of the tax cuts ignored the historical evidence showing that companies don’t use their windfalls to create jobs or invest in workers or innovation. In fact, the trend has been the opposite, with cuts to long-term investment in favor of short-term payouts.

And so far, it appears that corporations are passing along their tax breaks to wealthy shareholders, primarily by buying back stock. In fact, as real after-tax corporate profits shot up by more than 16% in the third quarter of 2018, stock buybacks are on track to reach $1 trillion — a record high — by the end of the year.

[exboyfil]

1. Non-itemizers

made out pretty well with the tax cuts as well. The country would have been far better off without it though.

Of course corporations would mostly do stock buybacks. It was not like they were cash poor. They have cash sitting on the sidelines because there are few decent investment options available. Our economy is demand driven by the masses. Those things that are pretty inelastic like healthcare, education, and housing continue to go up, while the trivial crap like the 50" TV continue to exhibit strong pricing pressures because of their elastic demand curve.

The ads regarding $1000 cellphones reek of desperation. How much gee whiz do we need when we can't get insulin at a price that reflects the cost to manufacture it (see a recent WSJ article).

I just got a deeply discounted Fitbit as a present. It is nice my family thought of me, but I really don't need it.

[Achilleaze]

2. republicans have URGENT message for Americans

[Achilleaze]

3. .

[Wellstone ruled]

4. If you have been paying attention in the last four or five days,

you would have seen the first couple of 1040 tax tables . And you would have saw this,most working people people will have to cough up hundreds of extra dollars. Lower income folks are going to get smacked big time.

[Achilleaze]

5. But republican plutocrats are going to get even stinking richer (R)

[Wellstone ruled]

7. I have never bitched about paying taxes

because that is a measure of success in life. But,the posted proposed Tables are a total affront to that Success Model . If you gross 50 k range,you are going to pay more than someone making 100k plus.

[moondust]

6. Stock price is everything.

Does anybody still have a customer service department? Quality control? Those things cut into profit margins, ya know.

I recently bought a cheap, name-brand printer (no doubt designed to make money off replacing ink cartridges). The software doesn't work, the paper often jams and won't feed, envelopes won't feed. Probably hired some cheap labor in Indonesia or someplace to make it and didn't do much QA or they would have found obvious problems like that. Or maybe they just didn't care.