Does anyone has a logical explanation of why Elon is supporting Trump? Why is he going to this length, alienate many of his supporters by supporting an political party. What’s is the end goal, since nothing makes sense right now.
I made a little table showing the highest marginal tax rate from 1913 to 2022 coded in blue for Democrat presidents and red for Republican:
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The first Democrat run saw a stunning rise of 66% in the highest marginal tax rate due to the insane expense of WWI.
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The first Republican run saw a drop of 48% as the nation moved away from the war economy and into the post-war economy.
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The second Democrat run saw a sharp rise of 38% at the beginning and a further rise of 28% by the end of their run because of the Great Depression and WWII in that order.
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The second Republican run kept the ultra-high (91%!) highest marginal tax rate during the post-war boom with no change.
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The third Democrat run saw the rate fall by 21% over its span.
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The third Republican run kept the rate as-is over its span.
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The fourth Democrat run (single-term) kept the rate as-is over its span.
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The fourth Republican run dropped the rate by 39%
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The fifth Democrat run saw an increase of almost 9% over its span.
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The fifth Republican run saw a drop of almost 5% over its span.
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The sixth Democrat run saw an increase of almost 5% over its span.
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The sixth Republican run saw a drop of almost 3% over its span.
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The final Democrat run (and the last data I have) saw no change.
If we factor out the war years (up to the end of the second Democrat run) we don’t see a huge pattern of differences in tax rates, given that those are the highest marginal tax rates and people in that bracket tend to have many ways to evade taxes. (Apartheid Manchild recently complain/bragged that he paid an amount of taxes that turned out to be 3-4% of his income where the vast majority of people pay well over 11% of their incomes, for example.)
So I doubt it’s money. It’s something else.
Other interesting notes that pop out at me:
- the Great Depression happened in 1929 under Republicans (~3.5 years)
- the recession of 1937 was under Democrats (~1 year)
- the recession of 1949 was under Democrats (~1 year)
- the recession of 1953 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
- the recession of 1958 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
- the recession of 1960 was under Democrats (~¾ years)
- the recession of 1969 was under Republicans (~1 year)
- the recession of 1973 was under Republicans (~1¼ years)
- the recession of 1980 was under Republicans (~½ years)
- the recession of 1981 was under Republicans (~1¼ years)
- the recession of 1990 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
- the recession of 2001 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
- the Great Recession happened in 2007 under Republicans (extending into Democrats) (~1.5 years)
Here I see a distinct pattern that should alarm anybody running a business since lost sales account far more for lost wealth than alterations in the highest marginal tax rate.
I don’t think tax rates or recessions really carry the picture. It is useful information but there are things that cost or have value outside of straight money that lend to making money or grant you influence on markets so you can make more money.
Gutting social safety nets, healthcare, etc makes people desperate and gives a more pliable workforce that cannot advocate for themselves they’re busy surviving. Bezos and all those neolib imperialists lean on this shit.
Buying a newspaper and shilling it or outright dumpstering it into oblivion doesn’t seem like a smart financial benefit but when the news and social media platforms are under your thumb nothing bad is said about you.
Control makes money making easier. They’re motivated by gaining more power or not losing what power they have and power directly translates to wealth.
Control doesn’t make money making easier when that control destroys the economy. It turns out productivity drops when people are treated like shit. You can see that happening at Twitter and Facebook both, for example.
But you’re right that this is about control. It’s just that it isn’t necessarily about the money except insofar as having a lot of money gives you a lot of control. Shitlords like the Apartheid Manchild or Harvard’s Robot wouldn’t care if they lost money … as long as everybody else lost more.
