Biden

[SydneyRover]

A surprise package to many including myself, defying all predictions of being too old for the job is cleaning out many of the trump stains and cobwebs.

A world minimum corporations tax would certainly help countries stabilise revenue but would probably mean that the west would have to do more to help the smaller poorer countries deprived of this revenue source?

[KeithMyath]

Must admit, it’s great to see someone in power just getting on with the job. No self congratulating “look over there” politics to cover the cracks, as we are fed on a daily basis. Sadly I can’t forsee a prime minister in what’s left of the Uk rolling up their sleeves.

[belton rover]

It is Keith and I think you’re right about it not happening here anytime soon. I think the difference is that America’s recent shit show was predominantly down to one man, but UK politics is an absolute mess everywhere.

[River Don]

The pandemic ruined his economic performance and he didn't handle the crisis well.

Without covid  I think there was a strong possibility he'd have got in again.

[BillyStubbsTears]

With respect Belton, that is a fundamental misunderstanding of American politics.

Trump didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere and chuck American politics into a surreal post-truth dystopia. The Republican party has been on a generation-long journey of promoting the Culture War and denying the validity of logical analysis.

Newt Gingrich back in the 90s explicitly said that the only way the Republican party would survive was through Culture War.

Republican Congress leaders like McConnell and Boehner repeatedly, for political advantage,  blocked textbook economic responses to the Great Financial Crash.

Bush and the NeoCons took the West into illegal wars based on alternative truths.

The right wing base has been radicalised for a generation by Fox News, Limbaugh and Bannon.

To point to Trump as some sort of unique and unusual manifestation of a temporary problem entirely overlooks that history. Trump was the inevitable consequence of where right wing American politics has been going for 30 years.

The Tories are off down a similar path. Brexit was about nothing other than Culture War. Cummings is on record saying Brexit was a way of forming a new cleavage in UK politics. And he is right. It has dragged older people with lower educational attainment away from Labour and into the hands of the Tories, just as Fox News's constant Culture War dragged Rust Belt pensioners from the Democrats to Trump.

The REAL lesson of Biden is that there is a majority in BOTH countries that can defeat the toxic Right. If the centre-left is united. And I fear that is where we are going to fall down here in the UK.

[BillyStubbsTears]

PS.
If you don't accept that it wasn't all about Trump, look at the two people who came closest to beating him in the 2016 Republican nomination race.

Ted Cruz is a Field Marshall in the Culture War.

Marco Rubio refused to say that he believed in Evolution, because he knew it would damage him with the Republican base.

THAT is how far away from conventional politics the Republican party was by the time they elected Trump.

[belton rover]

You are probably right, Billy. My view on politics and leaders is much simpler:

Johnson, for example is a bit of a chancer, and often out of his depth.
Starmer’s a lovely feller, but in the wrong job.
Biden is sensible, clear and decisive.
Trump is a f**king mad man.

[Glyn_Wigley]

It's great just to have a US President that knows how to act with dignity, regardless of their political leaning.

PS Anybody else following the Matt Gaetz shitshow? It couldn't happen to a smarmier Trump wannabe.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I agree to some extent Belton but I think you draw too much of a distinction between Trump and Johnson.

Trump's not mad. He's been clinically prepared to be extreme, knowing that a very large percentage of the electorate would support him unconditionally.

He knew that a lot of people didn't care that he lied and cheated. He was on their side. That was all that mattered.

Johnson is to a great extent cut from the same cloth.
No British PM has been such a pathological liar. No British PM has twice been sacked for lying. No British PM has ever been recorded agreeing to help a mate get a troublesome journalist assaulted.

But it doesn't matter. Brexit has so radicalised people that a large minority of the population don't care if he's a criminal liar. He's on their side. Just like Trump.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I certainly agree though that there is no-one on the Left in the UK with the political heft of Biden.

[bpoolrover]

Bst you say the toxic right and maybe your right but what about the toxic labour voter(some of them) on social media I find labour voters far more active than the tories always looking to argue to call you for having a different opinion or view, I know several people who voted labour for all there life but voted brexit that will never vote labour again due to the toxic comments and abuse they have received off fellow labour voters

[Janso]

but but but Labour 

[BillyStubbsTears]

Bpool.

You get Kitsons among supporters on all sides.

You don't get pathological, criminal liars among leaders on all sides.

That was what I meant by the toxicity of the Right both in the UK and the USA.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Biden's plan to move towards a global minimum corporation tax rate is a superb idea. One  of the key issues over the next decade, once we are over the COVID economic shock is to start reining in the Amazons and Ubers and make the bas**rds pay the tax that they should over the long term.

6 out of 7 G7 countries have said they will back it. See if you can take a wild guess at who the odd one out is.

[Metalmicky]

Biden's plan to move towards a global minimum corporation tax rate is a superb idea. One  of the key issues over the next decade, once we are over the COVID economic shock is to start reining in the Amazons and Ubers and make the bas**rds pay the tax that they should over the long term.

6 out of 7 G7 countries have said they will back it. See if you can take a wild guess at who the odd one out is.

I'm not for or against the idea BTW......... but there are differing viewpoints that should also be aired.

https://www.ft.com/content/a249285a-796f-40e3-a00a-f1398e249ef9

[BillyStubbsTears]

Can't read that MM as it's behind a paywall.

The point as I see it is that if you allow individual countries to play beggar my neighbour by having low corporation tax rates, the Amazons of this world will set up its nominal HQ there. That country will benefit a bit by getting a small percentage of a huge amount. But the population of the world as a whole will lose out because the overall tax take from these mega-companies will be piffling. It requires a unified approach by Governments all over the world, to set a basic level of tax that they will have to pay. And then to apply sanctions to any country that breaks the line, so that you make it not worth anyone's while to step out of line.

It's really going back towards a kind of internationalism and strong Govt that we had in the years after WWII, and ending the era of unfettered free markets. Worth noting that growth in the leading countries was both higher and more stable in the period 1950-1980, than it has been since, after the markets were let loose. We should embrace the idea of strong Govts bringing the Amazons to heel.

[Metalmicky]

The article....... and don't forget, I'm only putting it here for balance...

UK withholds backing for Biden’s global business tax plan

Rishi Sunak is holding back support for Joe Biden’s plans for a 21 per cent minimum global business tax rate, as Britain pushes the US to ensure any agreement includes a fairer system for taxing digital technology giants. The chancellor, who chairs the G7 finance ministers, said he would consider a global minimum levy only as part of a broader package, with Treasury officials fearing Biden is intent on compelling tech firms to pay tax “in California when it ought to be paid in the UK”. Sunak has come under pressure from Labour to endorse the US plan for a 21 per cent global minimum corporation tax rate. Lisa Nandy, shadow foreign secretary, charged that Britain was showing hesitancy, not leadership.

But the chancellor’s allies argued that backing Biden’s plan would play into the hands of Washington, which wants an early agreement on a global minimum tax rate, not least because the US president is also seeking to raise domestic corporation tax rates to 25-28 per cent. British officials feared that the US would be unwilling to accept a sufficiently radical shake-up of global tax rules — which date back to the 1920s — to reflect where multinationals make their sales, rather than where the groups have a physical presence.

Even though the Biden administration made a new offer that would pave the way for some large multinationals to pay taxes where sales are made, breaking with the Trump administration’s resistance, the UK does not believe it goes far enough.  The UK was also concerned that even if the Biden administration approved a global deal, it could still falter in Congress, leaving the UK high and dry. Talks on a revamp of global taxation are taking place at the OECD and G20 levels, and the issue is certain to come up when G7 finance ministers meet in London on June 4. Speaking at an online conference for Oxford university’s Centre for Business Taxation, Mike Williams, the Treasury’s director of business and international tax, said a deal that only looked at a global minimum tax was not politically acceptable.  “The core UK proposition is that we’ve got to solve the digital tax issue, which we’ve been working on for years,” he said. Britain has introduced its own digital sales tax, which is expected to raise about £500m per year from big US tech companies by 2024-25. “It’s not primarily about a minimum tax,” Williams said. “Minimum taxes might help — so long as they work — to ensure businesses pay tax, but it matters as well where tax is paid.” “In terms of providing schools for the children of Coventry, it is not actually tremendously helpful if more tax is paid in California when it ought to be paid in the UK,” he added.

But Britain is ready to do a deal that covers both pillars of Biden’s plan to overhaul global taxation: a global digital tax and the minimum global tax rate for multinationals. The chancellor told a Wall Street Journal CEO summit last week that the digital tax was the UK’s priority: “It’s about finding a way of appropriately and fairly taxing large international digital companies.” He has promised to scrap Britain’s digital sales tax if a multinational deal is agreed.

Sunak also said a 21 per cent minimum corporate tax rate was “higher than where previous discussions were”, but that he was open to discussing it. Ireland, with a headline 12.5 per cent rate, is fiercely opposed; Sunak is set to raise the UK rate to 25 per cent in 2023. Nandy said the Biden initiative on a minimum global tax rate represented a historic opportunity. She is working with Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, to push Sunak to put the issue on the agenda of next month’s G7 leaders summit in Cornwall. “We have to avoid a race to the bottom,” she said. Robert Palmer, director of campaign group Tax Justice UK, called on the UK to back Biden’s plan, saying the current position was “not a good look” for a government that has said it wants to tackle tax avoidance. While the deal on the table was “not perfect”, a global minimum corporate tax rate of 21 per cent would be a “game-changer” in stopping companies from paying “ultra-low” tax rates, he said.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Thanks for that MM. Useful detail. I'll withdraw my slight on the UK stance and keep an eye on it.

[Sprotyrover]

On the News tonight looks like Sleepy Joe has his Boxing gloves on, he is condoning and commissioning enquiries into the source of the Virus and Wuhan and China are the target of these enquiries. Seems he is keen to shake off the Sleepy Joe image and there may be a few shocks ,surprises and a very bumpy ride in store for any woolly liberals out there.

[SydneyRover]

On the News tonight looks like Sleepy Joe has his Boxing gloves on, he is condoning and commissioning enquiries into the source of the Virus and Wuhan and China are the target of these enquiries. Seems he is keen to shake off the Sleepy Joe image and there may be a few shocks ,surprises and a very bumpy ride in store for any woolly liberals out there.

It will be interesting to see how his scientists get the necessary access to Wuhan and the 'lab' that they will of course need to make any determination sprot

[Sprotyrover]

He has the UN and WHO on his side and I think it's about recreating himself as his present image has led the likes of Hamas to try and start a War and for China to throw its weight around in a bellicose manner.