President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Not Doc. But my 2 cents. Corporations don't invest in their businesses in an economy that has been growing at around 2 percent for the last decade. Why would you build a factory or open more stores or hire a lot of people to produce goods and services that people (who are overly indebted) can't afford?

It's why there are so many businesses struggling. To the extent we are seeing faux growth, it is all because of an enormous amount of debt creation during that time that has created a lot of zombie corporations living on debt, and a lot of consumers loaded up on artificially cheap financing to buy cars and iphones on credit. For most discretionary items, though, there isn't enough money there, which is why so much of retail has been struggling, for example. Not on the nation of bartenders and waiters living on credit cards we have become.

So to answer your question. ... No, tax cuts in a vacuum don't create jobs. The last time we got repatriation of money from overseas on a one-time tax holiday, it led to a lot of stock buybacks and dividend raises -- that cash went right to the owners of the companies. As has a lot of cheap debt over the last decade. ... the stated idea was to incentivize corporations to borrow and invest and that would create jobs and spur the economy. The reality is that businesses have taken advantage of the artificially cheap financing from price-fixed rates, but rather than doing capital expenditures (which would have made no sense in a depressed economy), they did stock buybacks and raised their dividends (which attracted investors hungry for yield with rates pinned so artificially low). That is great for the stock market -- for as long as a bubble can get inflated via artificial means. But no, it's not real economic activity. If we get a corporate tax cut and/or some form of repatriation, look for the same thing. Stock buybacks and dividend payouts to jack stock prices up without actually increasing earnings. ... not new factories and ventures employing lots of people.