
AT&T Plans to Fire 7,000 People Despite Tax Breaks, Net Neutrality Repeal - petethomas
https://www.extremetech.com/internet/283522-att-plans-to-fire-7000-people-despite-tax-breaks-net-neutrality-repeal
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danans
I never had much of an opinion on corporate tax rates in either direction
prior to the debate before the latest tax bill passed - I was much more
concerned with (IMO too low) top level marginal income tax rates and capital
gains rates.

But having understood, and now seen, the resulting huge transfer of wealth to
large owners of capital (including, in a smaller way, 401k holding people like
me) with paltry or negative gain for large numbers of lower middle income
people living paycheck to paycheck, has been an education to say the least.

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deogeo
If a company actively lobbies/bribes the government to pass laws and tax
policy at the expense of the general population, I think it's fair to call
that company _hostile_.

Perhaps it's time consumers start to act like it.

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tootahe45
It's generally only at the expense of the population when you have massively
overblown govt spending, for which the population has to then foot the bill.

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40acres
I think the 'trickle down' theory of economic works in principle but only when
you choose the correct starting point for the trickle. Forcing banks to have a
high level of reserve funds makes sense because in a down market or a crisis
lending is less threatened, giving normal families more cash will benefit the
economy because they will circulate that cash through the system. Large tax
breaks to multinational companies doesn't make sense in a 'trickle down' way
because there is so much a large Corp can spend money on that affects only a
sliver of the total economy: executive bonuses and share buybacks are the
obvious culprits.

At the end of the day though, everyone involved with this legislation knew who
it was intended for, and it definitely wasn't the economy as a whole. Not to
be a partisan but I really can't even discern what domestic policies the GOP
has on it's agenda, especially post tax cut. There are so many big ticket
problems in American society and they don't seem to have a plan for any of
them.

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skybrian
Trickle-up makes a lot more sense. Give money to people at the bottom, or
maybe equally to everyone. They will spend it, and whichever businesses serve
them best will profit.

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mbrumlow
I think you have to give it to everybody equally. Othereise it might be more
beneficial for some to stay in a lower bracket.

I know some will think this is silly but I have seen it fist hand geoing up.
This can happen when the cut off for support is a hard cliff. Working one
extra job for $100 can bring you over the limit resulting in more than double
the support. Essentially meaning you are paying $100 to make $100.

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niij
Situations like that cause people to be apathetic to moving up. That's the
reason I think handouts are a blunt instrument and at most should be used
sparingly.

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tootahe45
Never understood why people point at a single company reshuffling as a failure
of the tax cuts when job availability & wages are up significantly. It's like
the GM thing where somebody makes a terrible decision and we're meant to
believe it's the fault of the govt and that they need to be bailed out. At
this point in time, people have more choice in where to work and for what
price than ever before, it's likely that ATT would've faced an increase in
costs long-term to keep people.

