A signature campaign promise of the Biden-Harris campaign is to raise the U.S. federal corporate tax rate to 28 percent or 31 percent on corporations that “offshore manufacturing and service jobs to foreign nations in order to sell goods or provide services back to the American market.” (Tax Foundation) When we add in state corporate tax rates, the typical U.S. company might be hit with roughly 36 percent in taxes. Compare this to 12.5 percent in Ireland or 19 percent for a London-based company.
The Trump tax law changes of late 2017 took a lot of the wind out of the Irish inversion sails. If high corporate tax rates are restored by President Harris, though, it will again make the best economic sense for corporations to be headquartered in Ireland, the UK, or other comparatively low-tax location. Ireland has the lowest rate in the EU and everyone there speaks English (sort of). Can investors profit from a Biden-Harris election win, therefore, by buying Irish assets? Since U.S. law discourages sham inversions, the actual senior management jobs should migrate to Ireland. This should help Irish real estate, banks, insurance, etc. Under a Biden-Harris administration, an enterprise with management in Ireland and an operating subsidiary in the U.S. should have higher net profits than one in which everything is in the U.S.
Separately, how is Ireland doing with coronaplague? After more than seven months of shutdown, they’ve now entered “Level 5” double secret shutdown. Note that essentially everything is closed except for schools. Primary schools are unmasked. Once students enter secondary school they must don the hijab of the Church of Shutdown. Universities are open. Adult education is open, which includes flight schools (yay!). I was discussing this on WhatsApp with an Irish friend and I said “This is the mirror image of Massachusetts. Here almost everything is open except for the schools. And when we had almost everything closed, it was the marijuana and liquor stores that were deemed essential and kept open. Maybe this is all that we need to know to understand the difference between Irish and Massachusetts values.”
The WHO dashboard shows that Ireland, in its island redoubt, has suffered a little more than half the COVID-19 death rate compared to the U.S. or the U.K.
Ireland was already ahead of the U.S. in PISA scores (2018 snapshot). With the U.S. in the midst of what might be a multi-year education shutdown while Irish schools and universities are operating more or less normally (see Trinity College Dublin’s plan), is that another good reason to shift investment to Ireland?
What the Irish might call a sunny day, May 2019, on the Giant’s Causeway (taxed by the U.K., which is a great thing if you’re an entrepreneur!)
I don’t understand the Left’s grasp of economics. They want to extend lockdowns and raise taxes (in a lockdown-induced recession), crush pipeline and big oil companies (which would raise prices everywhere), and break-up big tech (one of the few performing sectors since March. And then feign surprise when someone like Elon Musk expands his business into lower-cost states. How will any of those things not make the economy worse?
MA just went ballistic. Masks for everyone outside of the home, no exceptions. 10pm to 5am curfew. Everything closes at 9:30 pm – flight schools specifically listed. Maskatardians if you comply you deserve what you will get.
GB: It is terrible to think that we won’t be able to get fresh marijuana at 10 pm. I am confused as to how the bureaucrats thought it was worth putting effort into closing driving and flight schools at 9:30 pm. How many lessons did they imagine were happening after 9:30 pm? To the extent this accomplishes anything, won’t it make Covid worse? People who would have gone to the 24-hour gym at midnight to avoid the crowds will now have to go during the hours when others are there. https://www.mass.gov/doc/covid-19-order-53/download
I had the same reaction as yours regarding liquor and marijuana stores. However, since then I have heard the argument that there are addicts and it would harm them badly if those stores are not available. Maybe there are other reasons, I haven’t looked much into it.
@a fan: My own theory is that if marijuana/alcohol stores weren’t deemed “essential businesses” they’d become the victims of rioting/looting within the week.
I suppose some of the answer depends on how accurate you think Jim Rogers’s forecasts are. The co-founder of the Soros Quantum Fund is predicting the worst recession in 78 years.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-next-bear-market-will-be-the-worst-in-at-least-78-years-warns-co-founder-of-george-soross-legendary-quantum-fund-11604259054
If he’s right, where’s the best place to put your money? He’s pushing commodities as a hedge. Is there any gold in Ireland? Do the leprechauns have any?
He was quoted in Russian state propaganda RT.com, like Scott Atlas, who gave them a 24 minute interview without approval from the Deep State within the Oval Office, and claimed he didn’t know who they are!
Side question: How do you get to be Scott Atlas and not know that RT is a Russian propaganda outlet and registered as a foreign agent? Do we just chalk that up to total naivete and him being to busy to ask anyone in the White House – “Who are those guys?” My Deplorable inbred cousin Jeb Billybob Duck Dynasty knows that! I guess since Jim Rogers is giving them the inside skinny, it’s OK.
I would caution both Scott Atlas and Jim Rogers about getting too cozy with with anyone from RT. Once people stop being useful to them, they have a strange way of being beaten to death in Washington hotel rooms. Russian state security forces were active enough in DC to pummel him to death! So they’ve got their boots on the ground.
https://www.businessinsider.com/christopher-steele-fbi-mikhail-lesin-rt-russia-murdered-2018-3
“The victim, Mikhail Lesin, founded the state-funded pro-Russia network RT.
The alleged murder took place days before Lesin was supposed to meet with Justice Department investigators.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Lesin
“Mikhail Yuriyevich Lesin (Russian: Михаил Юрьевич Лесин; 11 July 1958 – 5 November 2015) was a Russian political figure, media executive and adviser to president Vladimir Putin.[1] In 2006, he was awarded the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland”, one of Russia’s highest state decorations for civilians. Lesin was nicknamed the Bulldozer (Russian: Бульдозер) because of his ability to get virtually all Russian media outlets under the Kremlin’s control, and for being combative in person.[2][3]
Technology! The surveillance state only works when everyone cooperates!
“The hotel security footage from a camera outside Lesin’s room that should have recorded three critical hours before he died was found to be defective.”
@Alex
Re: [“For Merit to the Fatherland”, one of Russia’s highest state decorations for civilians. ]
I thought the commies/USSR had “motherland”, and the Nazis had “Fatherland”.
Am I wrong, or did Russia disown its communist past?
I’m a professor at a university in Ireland. I am teaching two courses this semester. Over the Internet, from my bedroom. No plans to drive to campus for the foreseeable future. Exams will be either online, or skipped in favour of so other sort of assessment.
Not sure what you mean by universities here being open.
But I can tell you one thing that’s really not open here. COVID-19 testing centres! If you want a test, you get to go through seventeen hoops and maybe they’ll give you one or maybe not. And if so you get to quarantine your entire family until the results are back. And maybe they’ll take the sample tomorrow and you might get the result back a couple days after that. So from “cough cough gosh I really should get a test” to results is quite a long road, filled with disincentives.
It’s a real mystery why the numbers are going up. Just inexplicable.
Barak: My friend’s flight school is operating normally. I wonder if Trinity is an outlier. https://www.tcd.ie/about/coronavirus/ says “We will maintain a balance of on-campus and remote learning for the remainder of the semester. … Labs and tutorials will continue to be delivered face-to-face. … Campus residences will remain open. … Student breakout spaces will remain open.”
Yeah, my university administration said crap like “maintain a balance of on-campus and remote learning” too. Faculty aren’t going to deliver a live lecture to 30 students while the remaining 60 watch on video and also schedule some rotation for which 30 are in the hall which lecture. It’s all online unless it involves fume hoods and beakers.
Barak: COVID-19 testing is on the same plan here in Maskachusetts, incidentally. Healthy people who don’t need to be tested, e.g., university students and staff, are being tested at a furious rate (2X/week in some cases). This uses up 90% of the state’s testing capacity. Ordinary citizens who are sick, on the other hand, face a multi-hour phone and web chase to try to get a test arranged. Then they’ll wait up to 2 days to get in and be tested. Then they’ll wait 30-48 hours to get a result after that.