DBT
Contributor
Also, FWIW, trickle down economics was, and remains, a scam. Pure evil foisted off on an ignorant public by the shamefully well-heeled.
But you knew that (if you’re not G55).
And a Scam is a form of theft.
Also, FWIW, trickle down economics was, and remains, a scam. Pure evil foisted off on an ignorant public by the shamefully well-heeled.
But you knew that (if you’re not G55).
A minor nitpick: It is my impression that most people consider the Golden Age of Capitalism came to a close with the 1973 recession in the US; and after a quick check, a couple years prior for the UK. So I'm not sure why 1980 is in that GIF...
Government imposes way too many taxes. This country would be light years ahead of where we are now if the government would just stop meddling. They can't even run the DMV.You are referring to only Federal Income taxes. Add in the FICA taxes, duty taxes, and energy taxes, and you find quite a different number.Also keep in mind that the top 1% pays 40% of federal taxes. The bottom 20% only pays 1% of federal taxes. We can conclude that if you are poor, you pay very little taxes. Trickle down.
Added graph:
View attachment 36168
But don't let the fact that the hypothesis does not see the mechanism of it's action bear out into actual theory stop you from believing it. That's not a problem with the hypothesis, NO, it's just uh... LIBERTY!I don't think anyone disputes that corporations produce stuff and employ people. The 'trickle-down' argument was that tax cuts etc would motivate them to produce more stuff and employ more people.
The empirical evidence, which was in dispute for a long time, is now clear-cut. Decades of such policies in places like the US or UK have, unsurprisingly, made the rich much richer. Contrary to the predictions of trickle down theory, the result has been to reduce, rather than increase, the productivity and dynamism of the economy. The combination of slower growth and increased inequality implies, as a matter of arithmetic, that most people are worse off than they'd otherwise have been.
*Throws smoke bomb*
*Coughs a bit, obscured lightly by a thin powder*
I totally vanished like a ninja you all saw me, just pretend like you didn't see that
</Libertarian>
So instead of acknowledging that your post distorted the federal tax revenue equation relative to income, you go off on a pony ride babbling about the DMV....says a lot about your argument.Government imposes way too many taxes. This country would be light years ahead of where we are now if the government would just stop meddling. They can't even run the DMV.You are referring to only Federal Income taxes. Add in the FICA taxes, duty taxes, and energy taxes, and you find quite a different number.Also keep in mind that the top 1% pays 40% of federal taxes. The bottom 20% only pays 1% of federal taxes. We can conclude that if you are poor, you pay very little taxes. Trickle down.
Added graph:
View attachment 36168
Also keep in mind that the top 1% pays 40% of federal taxes.
The bottom 20% only pays 1% of federal taxes. We can conclude that if you are poor, you pay very little taxes. Trickle down.
No, it doesn't.Government imposes way too many taxes.You are referring to only Federal Income taxes. Add in the FICA taxes, duty taxes, and energy taxes, and you find quite a different number.Also keep in mind that the top 1% pays 40% of federal taxes. The bottom 20% only pays 1% of federal taxes. We can conclude that if you are poor, you pay very little taxes. Trickle down.
Added graph:
View attachment 36168
No, it wouldn't.This country would be light years ahead of where we are now if the government would just stop meddling.
Which one?They can't even run the DMV.
This makes about as much sense as, "Keep your Government hands off my Medicare!"Government imposes way too many taxes. This country would be light years ahead of where we are now if the government would just stop meddling. They can't even run the DMV.
They tax you to give the currency value; Not so that they have currency to spend. If they didn't collect taxes in dollars, why would anyone want dollars? In the absence of taxation, your dollars would be worthless. It's better for you to have fewer dollars that have value, than it would be for you to have lots of completely worthless dollars.
I am a dragon.
I do like my job. Being a dragon is extremely entertaining.
Wealth inequality is caused by the same two things that bring wealth:^https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/114736/1/833477102.pdf
Read and understand at least the abstract, and do not speak to me again until you have done so.
Why should I read it? From what you're quoting it utterly does not address my point. Showing that inequality is a problem says nothing about the cause of inequality.
(a) Inheritance
(b) High earnings
Note that parents' wealth or inherited wealth can provide the education or other opportunities that lead to high earnings.
Despite the rags-to-riches* stories of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk etc. it is Inheritance that has been and remains the driver behind increasing wealth inequality. Paul Krugman once said he was surprised to learn this, but he could not argue with the data in Piketty's work that demonstrates it. (* - Gates et al aren't really "rags-to-riches" exceptions; they're more like Levi's-to-Versace.)
And of course part of the growing inequality in the U.S. is simply due to tax policies deliberately designed to make the rich richer.
I'd be a hypocrite to recommend the interesting Gründler-Scheuermeyer paper. I've got it in a tab and have been skimming it, but it's rather dense and my to-do list is long and ever-growing.
I only hoard books, and I actually read them all, dang it! Yes, I really do need all of these books. Yes, I do read all of them.I am a dragon.
I do like my job. Being a dragon is extremely entertaining.
Why do you like sitting around on treasure rather than putting your wealth to productive uses and growing it?
Treasure hoarding has always struck me as something dragons should be intelligent enough to see isn't a good plan.
I think it would thereby be justification to focus redistribution on the parts of the United states, for example, that have had the slowest economic development. One solution that I have proposed has been the idea of using a progressive property tax combined with a budget for rural education reforms that are commensurate with the estimated impact of the tax. I have not gone far in exploring the feasibility of the idea, but it has personal appeal to me.
I think there is an alternative to letting the largest metro areas continue getting overcrowded. We really do not need to let those economies fail. We can probably save many of them with targeted education reforms. I had to leave the area where I grew up because the failure of that economy caused me such serious devastation, but by the time I got loose from that situation, my life and my mental health were already in tatters. Personally, I am of the opinion that it's cruel to abandon people in those areas that might not always be to blame for their issues.I think it would thereby be justification to focus redistribution on the parts of the United states, for example, that have had the slowest economic development. One solution that I have proposed has been the idea of using a progressive property tax combined with a budget for rural education reforms that are commensurate with the estimated impact of the tax. I have not gone far in exploring the feasibility of the idea, but it has personal appeal to me.
There's another major factor at work here: Rural areas have been subject to decades of their best and brightest leaving for jobs in the cities. Any area that has suffered this is going to end up being shit. Redistribution can't fix that.
Wow, Loren cracked the case. An obscure programmer from Las Vegas cracked a highly respected Doctor of Economics life's work. Impressive.Wealth inequality is caused by the same two things that bring wealth:^https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/114736/1/833477102.pdf
Read and understand at least the abstract, and do not speak to me again until you have done so.
Why should I read it? From what you're quoting it utterly does not address my point. Showing that inequality is a problem says nothing about the cause of inequality.
(a) Inheritance
(b) High earnings
Note that parents' wealth or inherited wealth can provide the education or other opportunities that lead to high earnings.
Despite the rags-to-riches* stories of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk etc. it is Inheritance that has been and remains the driver behind increasing wealth inequality. Paul Krugman once said he was surprised to learn this, but he could not argue with the data in Piketty's work that demonstrates it. (* - Gates et al aren't really "rags-to-riches" exceptions; they're more like Levi's-to-Versace.)
And of course part of the growing inequality in the U.S. is simply due to tax policies deliberately designed to make the rich richer.
I'd be a hypocrite to recommend the interesting Gründler-Scheuermeyer paper. I've got it in a tab and have been skimming it, but it's rather dense and my to-do list is long and ever-growing.
I listened to 4 chapters of Piketty's work and gave up--he consistently couldn't see that as things changed he wasn't dealing with the same group of people. He treated those at the top as the descendents of the earlier generations even when there were major shifts in society that toppled the old leaders. It's new players in new areas that keep rising to the top, the old players slowly fall down as the wealth dissipates. That's why the Germans had the law of primogeniture--they recognized that wealth inherently dissipates if you have multiple heirs per generation.
Of course there was higher growth in the post-war period. You had several years of pent-up technological growth to exploit and there were also years where we could export the bad jobs. Neither of these factors has anything to do with the economic policies of the era.
WTF? For the years after WWII, the US was one of the few industrialized countries that did not have to rebuild its infrastructure. So, the US could and did dominate export markets for a couple of decades simply based on the fact that it could produce goods and services that were needed to rebuild.
Of course there was higher growth in the post-war period. You had several years of pent-up technological growth to exploit and there were also years where we could export the bad jobs. Neither of these factors has anything to do with the economic policies of the era.