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On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph?
Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion.
And to both your and Danglars' concerns - yes we need to put resources into helping the poor, but we also need to be concerned about how we deploy those resources. And many options for using those resources exist. Let's not box ourselves into either blindly throwing money at the problem or not trying at all.
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On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph? Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion.
I don't know what's the best answer to that : "lol", "really ?" or a simple "what ?".
How about fiscal redistribution ? Just consider america's history : in 1964, the marginal tax rate for richest people was at 91%, 70% in the 70s and now only around 30%. It is pretty easy to fight wealth inequalities, you just have to do something against it.
![[image loading]](http://www.ips-dc.org/files/4295/TopMarginalTaxRate.JPG)
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On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph? Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion. I don't know what's the best answer to that : "lol", "really ?" or a simple "what ?". How about fiscal redistribution ? Just consider america's history : in 1964, the marginal tax rate for richest people was at 91%, 70% in the 70s and now only around 25%. It is pretty easy to fight wealth inequalities, you just have to do something against it.
That's where you really see ideology at work: sam agrees that private healthcare is bad but he *hates* welfare state that he has never experienced; Johnny agrees that inequalities are too big but he will support a party that does everything possible to make the gap bigger because he hates taxes he will never have to pay (assuming he is not part of the top income / fortune there), and fiscal redistributions is bad.
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On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph? Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion. I don't know what's the best answer to that : "lol", "really ?" or a simple "what ?". How about fiscal redistribution ? Just consider america's history : in 1964, the marginal tax rate for richest people was at 91%, 70% in the 70s and now only around 25%. It is pretty easy to fight wealth inequalities, you just have to do something against it.
Redistributing wealth is tricky because you need the wealth to stay wealth, otherwise the inequality persists. So you can't just redistribute, you need some mechanism to prevent the poor from selling the wealth to fund consumption. Otherwise you are dealing with income / consumption inequality, not wealth inequality.
Comparing taxes from 1964 to today requires more than just looking at the top marginal rates. FYI, the top federal rate now is 39.6%, not 25%.
Edit: responding to the graph, the change in effective tax rate on the top earners is no where near as dramatic as the change in marginal tax rates. The tax brackets were lowered and loopholes / deductions were eliminated, which partially offset the decline in marginal rates:
![[image loading]](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/assets_c/2013/01/Average_Federal_Tax_Rates_Top_1_Percent-thumb-615x480-109671.png) Link
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On November 13 2013 00:37 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets.
Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care.
Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph? Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion. I don't know what's the best answer to that : "lol", "really ?" or a simple "what ?". How about fiscal redistribution ? Just consider america's history : in 1964, the marginal tax rate for richest people was at 91%, 70% in the 70s and now only around 25%. It is pretty easy to fight wealth inequalities, you just have to do something against it. That's where you really see ideology at work: sam agrees that private healthcare is bad but he *hates* welfare state that he has never experienced; Johnny agrees that inequalities are too big but he will support a party that does everything possible to make the gap bigger because he hates taxes he will never have to pay (assuming he is not part of the top income / fortune there), and fiscal redistributions is bad.
Untrue. Republicans support various redistribution schemes (EITC is a big example).
You have to be pretty deep into an ideology to hold the opinion that what redistribution scheme you use is a completely irrelevant issue.
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On November 13 2013 00:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets.
Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care.
Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph? Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion. I don't know what's the best answer to that : "lol", "really ?" or a simple "what ?". How about fiscal redistribution ? Just consider america's history : in 1964, the marginal tax rate for richest people was at 91%, 70% in the 70s and now only around 25%. It is pretty easy to fight wealth inequalities, you just have to do something against it. Redistributing wealth is tricky because you need the wealth to stay wealth, otherwise the inequality persists. So you can't just redistribute, you need some mechanism to prevent the poor from selling the wealth to fund consumption. Otherwise you are dealing with income / consumption inequality, not wealth inequality. Comparing taxes from 1964 to today requires more than just looking at the top marginal rates. FYI, the top federal rate now is 39.6%, not 25%.
Don't nitpick, and stop bullshitting me. Inequality persist because you... NO. Please, no. Please.
Comparing taxes from 1964 to today requires more than just looking at the top marginal rates.
And what does it needs more ?
You can't deny the fact that most countries have higher marginal taxation rates, and the higher the marginal taxation rate is, the lower inequalities are (50% in northern european countries, 45% in France, etc.). Also, if you put a high marginal taxation rate on wages, you prevent firms from giving too big salaries as they will try to minimize taxation.
Not to mention your argument means nothing because if the poor actually consume most of the surplus they gain because of the redistribution and even if this money actually goes back in the hand of the rich, the rich will again be taxed and thus the money will go back to the poor : it's a circuit, of course rich gain money from poor's consumption, the goal is not to minimize this flux (because it is beneficial to the economy), but to minimize the accumulation of flux (saving rate, patrimony, etc.) and this is entirely possible if you tax enough.
On November 13 2013 00:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 11:36 sam!zdat wrote:
you don't get it. a fully private healthcare system would just exacerbate social inequality and make even more obvious the gap between the haves and have nots. there's no politically feasible way to allow that to happen without also revolutionizing the relations of production and solving the deeper contradictions in the class structure of american society. government intervention in healthcare is part of the social democratic compromise that is the only thing holding the fabric of capitalist society together. the only possible capitalist state is the welfare state - if you don't like the welfare state (i hate it) you are going to have to start thinking about alternatives to capitalism. I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets. Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care. Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets.
Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care.
Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph? Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion. I don't know what's the best answer to that : "lol", "really ?" or a simple "what ?". How about fiscal redistribution ? Just consider america's history : in 1964, the marginal tax rate for richest people was at 91%, 70% in the 70s and now only around 25%. It is pretty easy to fight wealth inequalities, you just have to do something against it. Edit: responding to the graph, the change in effective tax rate on the top earners is no where near as dramatic as the change in marginal tax rates. The tax brackets were lowered and loopholes / deductions were eliminated, which partially offset the decline in marginal rates: Link
You know why your graph is irrelevant right ? Because even if the average tax rate didn't move, the 1% then (in 1979) and now (in 2010) is not the same and doesn't posses the same share of the national income.
So, your graph actually proves my argument is right if you add to it a graph comparing the share of the national income of the top 1% in 1979 to today : because the marginal taxation rate was lowered, it didn't limited the rising of inequalities (which is, the fact that the top 1% from 1979 to today posses an increasing part of the national income).
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On November 13 2013 00:49 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 00:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 12:23 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
I have to accept something less than utopia. Utopia is not for this world. Income and standard of life inequality must exist at some level if the community is not entirely in grinding poverty. To create the the fastest increase in standards of life for the lowest in society, we have capitalist markets.
Why? Without capitalism and the notions of price signalling and profits, you condemn the poor to their pitiable state by depriving them of opportunity to advance. Without the same there will not be a sufficiently prosperous society to provide the wealth necessary to help the truly destitute, unless you want a generalized decrease in living standards across the board. I argue for a safety net of sorts, as much as that construction is abused, to keep that extreme poverty far away and to help the aged and disabled that lack the resources for their own care.
Now, I simplify your revolution in class structure to the natural progressive urges present in capitalist societies. As much as the problem with the related communist society is the communists, the problem with capitalist society is the capitalists. Unwilling to accept that other forms would not lead to an increase in poverty rather than a decrease, they agitate for it -- particularly the richest. When, however, the help for impoverished persons transforms into a lifestyle with heavy disincentives for an exit (a welfare trap), then we have a perversion of a good thing and a moral need to reform it. We are not conquering the basic human attribute of envy that commands so much political power nowadays, but we are limiting its destructive and self-defeating economic policies with a healthy dose of reason and historical proof. Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent. You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:
[quote]
Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent.
You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph? Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion. I don't know what's the best answer to that : "lol", "really ?" or a simple "what ?". How about fiscal redistribution ? Just consider america's history : in 1964, the marginal tax rate for richest people was at 91%, 70% in the 70s and now only around 25%. It is pretty easy to fight wealth inequalities, you just have to do something against it. Redistributing wealth is tricky because you need the wealth to stay wealth, otherwise the inequality persists. So you can't just redistribute, you need some mechanism to prevent the poor from selling the wealth to fund consumption. Otherwise you are dealing with income / consumption inequality, not wealth inequality. Comparing taxes from 1964 to today requires more than just looking at the top marginal rates. FYI, the top federal rate now is 39.6%, not 25%. Don't nitpick, and stop bullshitting me. Inequality persist because you... NO. Please, no. Please.
I'm not nitpicking. The words wealth and income are different words. Wealth inequality is a different thing than income inequality. They are related, but they are not the same thing.
And what does it needs more ?
You can't deny the fact that most countries have higher marginal taxation rates, and the higher the marginal taxation rate is, the lower inequalities are (50% in northern european countries, 45% in France, etc.). Also, if you put a high marginal taxation rate on wages, you prevent firms from giving too big salaries as they will try to minimize taxation.
Not to mention your argument means nothing because if the poor actually consume most of the surplus they gain because of the redistribution and even if this money actually goes back in the hand of the rich, the rich will again be taxed and thus the money will go back to the poor : it's a circuit, of course rich gain money from poor's consumption, the goal is not to minimize this flux (because it is beneficial to the economy), but to minimize the accumulation of flux (saving rate, patrimony, etc.) and this is entirely possible if you tax enough.
I never made the claim that top marginal rates are irrelevant. Moreover, I made comments relating to wealth not income yet you keep arguing about income. If the poor consume what they've been given, they won't have the money anymore (they consumed it!) therefore, their wealth did not increase. Their income and consumption increased, but not their wealth.
As for limiting salaries to be more tax efficient... I'm not sure how that works. The business doesn't pay that tax and I would think that the worker would prefer a higher after tax income even if it meant higher taxes.
You know why your graph is irrelevant right ? Because even if the average tax rate didn't move, the 1% then (in 1979) and now (in 2010) is not the same and doesn't posses the same share of the national income.
So, your graph actually proves my argument is right if you add to it a graph comparing the share of the national income of the top 1% in 1979 to today : because the marginal taxation rate was lowered, it didn't limited the rising of inequalities (which is, the fact that the top 1% from 1979 to today posses an increasing part of the national income).
The point of the graph is that marginal rates aren't the whole tax story. A 70% marginal rate doesn't mean that someone earning $1mm would actually pay more in taxes than they would today. The 70% marginal rate could come at a higher bracket and carry many more deductions and credits. What's the big deal about a 70% marginal rate that you can sidestep and not pay?
I haven't said that a higher marginal rate wouldn't have an effect, I've just said that it's not the whole story. Which is absolutely true.
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I don't think the industrialized countries need higher taxes in general, i just think we need to tax the shit out of income from capital and need to introduce big fat inheritance taxes.
I think it's just unfair that some people make millions out of their family dynasties and pay 20-25% on their income, while other people work their asses off, earn 60 to 80k a year and and have to pay 45-55% income taxes. (These numbers are probably only accurate for most of Europe)
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On November 12 2013 17:29 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2013 16:33 sam!zdat wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:
That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I wish you would listen to me sam, as someone who has had trouble listening to you in the past. It can get kind of difficult when your main stock is one liners. You don't often detail your objections, and it can kind of sound like the regular party line or w/e.
he actually just ignored what I was saying and didn't listen and assumed that he knew what I meant (which was backwards from what I meant). thanks for your input though.
the welfare state is bad because it is too big to fail. it's also not very dignified. also when you make comparisons to countries like france or sweden that is ignoring some very important and fundamental differences between the US and those countries (they are smaller, more homogenous, occupy different places in the world economy, and have much different political traditions). But you guys don't need to defend it to me: my position is that the welfare state is the only solution this side of the revolution. But it's just sort of a bandaid. Keep in mind also that the systems in countries like Sweden and France are not self-contained, they are dependent on exploitation of the global south etc and we can't take them naively as either 1) permanent stable structures or 2) as happy and nice as they might seem.
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On November 13 2013 01:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 00:49 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 00:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 12:26 sam!zdat wrote:
there's no opportunity to advance, civilization is just settling back into its usual pattern of tiny elites and massive underclass, after the anomalous interlude of large american middle class which is basically just a historical oddity On November 12 2013 13:21 IgnE wrote:
[quote]
Not sure what the bolded sentence means. Seems like you are missing an antecedent.
You misunderstand human beings. They are not rational actors who respond to financial incentives like you think they do. And no one would prefer living in poverty with an iphone to a wealthy life without one. Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion. There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
[quote]
Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion.
There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph? Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion. I don't know what's the best answer to that : "lol", "really ?" or a simple "what ?". How about fiscal redistribution ? Just consider america's history : in 1964, the marginal tax rate for richest people was at 91%, 70% in the 70s and now only around 25%. It is pretty easy to fight wealth inequalities, you just have to do something against it. Redistributing wealth is tricky because you need the wealth to stay wealth, otherwise the inequality persists. So you can't just redistribute, you need some mechanism to prevent the poor from selling the wealth to fund consumption. Otherwise you are dealing with income / consumption inequality, not wealth inequality. Comparing taxes from 1964 to today requires more than just looking at the top marginal rates. FYI, the top federal rate now is 39.6%, not 25%. Don't nitpick, and stop bullshitting me. Inequality persist because you... NO. Please, no. Please. I'm not nitpicking. The words wealth and income are different words. Wealth inequality is a different thing than income inequality. They are related, but they are not the same thing. Show nested quote +And what does it needs more ?
You can't deny the fact that most countries have higher marginal taxation rates, and the higher the marginal taxation rate is, the lower inequalities are (50% in northern european countries, 45% in France, etc.). Also, if you put a high marginal taxation rate on wages, you prevent firms from giving too big salaries as they will try to minimize taxation.
Not to mention your argument means nothing because if the poor actually consume most of the surplus they gain because of the redistribution and even if this money actually goes back in the hand of the rich, the rich will again be taxed and thus the money will go back to the poor : it's a circuit, of course rich gain money from poor's consumption, the goal is not to minimize this flux (because it is beneficial to the economy), but to minimize the accumulation of flux (saving rate, patrimony, etc.) and this is entirely possible if you tax enough. I never made the claim that top marginal rates are irrelevant. Moreover, I made comments relating to wealth not income yet you keep arguing about income. If the poor consume what they've been given, they won't have the money anymore (they consumed it!) therefore, their wealth did not increase. Their income and consumption increased, but not their wealth. As for limiting salaries to be more tax efficient... I'm not sure how that works. The business doesn't pay that tax and I would think that the worker would prefer a higher after tax income even if it meant higher taxes. Show nested quote +You know why your graph is irrelevant right ? Because even if the average tax rate didn't move, the 1% then (in 1979) and now (in 2010) is not the same and doesn't posses the same share of the national income.
So, your graph actually proves my argument is right if you add to it a graph comparing the share of the national income of the top 1% in 1979 to today : because the marginal taxation rate was lowered, it didn't limited the rising of inequalities (which is, the fact that the top 1% from 1979 to today posses an increasing part of the national income). The point of the graph is that marginal rates aren't the whole tax story. A 70% marginal rate doesn't mean that someone earning $1mm would actually pay more in taxes than they would today. The 70% marginal rate could come at a higher bracket and carry many more deductions and credits. What's the big deal about a 70% marginal rate that you can sidestep and not pay? I haven't said that a higher marginal rate wouldn't have an effect, I've just said that it's not the whole story. Which is absolutely true.
Taxation rate and marginal taxation rate two entirely different being : the average taxation rate says a lot about the overall contribution of someone. The marginal taxation rate tells what happen when someone pass from one income to another.
Having a high taxation rate is a way to understand the importance of public economy, welfare state and all those things in the economy of a country, while having a high marginal taxation rate prevent increasing income inequalities.
Of course it is not "everything": some inflation could help, or you could tax the heritage, or even take away kids from their parents and give them a public education like in Thomas More's Utopia. Suffice to say, you can do a lot of things.
On November 13 2013 01:50 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2013 17:29 packrat386 wrote:On November 12 2013 16:33 sam!zdat wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:
That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I wish you would listen to me sam, as someone who has had trouble listening to you in the past. It can get kind of difficult when your main stock is one liners. You don't often detail your objections, and it can kind of sound like the regular party line or w/e. he actually just ignored what I was saying and didn't listen and assumed that he knew what I meant (which was backwards from what I meant). thanks for your input though. the welfare state is bad because it is too big to fail. it's also not very dignified. also when you make comparisons to countries like france or sweden that is ignoring some very important and fundamental differences between the US and those countries (they are smaller, more homogenous, occupy different places in the world economy, and have much different political traditions). But you guys don't need to defend it to me: my position is that the welfare state is the only solution this side of the revolution. But it's just sort of a bandaid. Keep in mind also that the systems in countries like Sweden and France are not self-contained, they are dependent on exploitation of the global south etc and we can't take them naively as either 1) permanent stable structures or 2) as happy and nice as they might seem.
I agree with some of your points (US and Europe are different, and we indeed are far from perfects), but you cannot hide yourself behind the supposed (and mystified) complexity of the inqualities to justify doing nothing.
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Inheritence taxes make up about .6% (six tenths of one percent) of the annual revenue to the treasury.
It's like $19 billion of the $2.77 Trillion in revenues. http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0913.pdf
It's not worth adminstering. Really.
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Just think about that logic...A small portion doesn't mean it's not worth administering.
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On November 13 2013 02:54 Roe wrote:
Just think about that logic...A small portion doesn't mean it's not worth administering.
If everyone in the US didn't have to worry so much about family trusts and estate planning? You think that would be worth more or less than $19 billion per year. There's probably way more than $19 billion spent per year on attorney fees to avoid estate taxes.
It is not worth it.
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On November 13 2013 03:00 RCMDVA wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 02:54 Roe wrote:
Just think about that logic...A small portion doesn't mean it's not worth administering. If everyone in the US didn't have to worry so much about family trusts and estate planning? You think that would be worth more or less than $19 billion per year. There's probably way more than $19 billion spent per year on attorney fees to avoid estate taxes. It is not worth it.
Then don't hire attorneys to avoid estate taxes. It's more simple than you're making it. I mean if you have the math showing that this worrying costs more than 19 billion dollars a year I could see your point. Why not just increase the tax so it's more worth administering?
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On November 13 2013 02:43 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 01:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 13 2013 00:49 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 00:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
[quote]
Perhaps I jumped too far with the phrase prior for those that have never heard it. It's no matter. And it isn't only financial incentives, it's the lack of financial disincentives in almost equal portion. Your mythical irrational actors, unconcerned with a better life for themselves and their family, slavishly working on despite government telling them that jobs are risky but welfare is bedrock, are not to be found in any great number on this earth. Impoverishing the country is how you create opportunity and jobs. Condemning the poor to their lot is your compassion.
There you have it. I can only dream of raising up as many straw men as you have in the past 50 pages, but dream on I shall. I say it is unfair to the poor for their would-be representatives to continually seek to keep them that way claiming compassion every step of the way. That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point. So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:
[quote]
I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point.
So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph? Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion. I don't know what's the best answer to that : "lol", "really ?" or a simple "what ?". How about fiscal redistribution ? Just consider america's history : in 1964, the marginal tax rate for richest people was at 91%, 70% in the 70s and now only around 25%. It is pretty easy to fight wealth inequalities, you just have to do something against it. Redistributing wealth is tricky because you need the wealth to stay wealth, otherwise the inequality persists. So you can't just redistribute, you need some mechanism to prevent the poor from selling the wealth to fund consumption. Otherwise you are dealing with income / consumption inequality, not wealth inequality. Comparing taxes from 1964 to today requires more than just looking at the top marginal rates. FYI, the top federal rate now is 39.6%, not 25%. Don't nitpick, and stop bullshitting me. Inequality persist because you... NO. Please, no. Please. I'm not nitpicking. The words wealth and income are different words. Wealth inequality is a different thing than income inequality. They are related, but they are not the same thing. And what does it needs more ?
You can't deny the fact that most countries have higher marginal taxation rates, and the higher the marginal taxation rate is, the lower inequalities are (50% in northern european countries, 45% in France, etc.). Also, if you put a high marginal taxation rate on wages, you prevent firms from giving too big salaries as they will try to minimize taxation.
Not to mention your argument means nothing because if the poor actually consume most of the surplus they gain because of the redistribution and even if this money actually goes back in the hand of the rich, the rich will again be taxed and thus the money will go back to the poor : it's a circuit, of course rich gain money from poor's consumption, the goal is not to minimize this flux (because it is beneficial to the economy), but to minimize the accumulation of flux (saving rate, patrimony, etc.) and this is entirely possible if you tax enough. I never made the claim that top marginal rates are irrelevant. Moreover, I made comments relating to wealth not income yet you keep arguing about income. If the poor consume what they've been given, they won't have the money anymore (they consumed it!) therefore, their wealth did not increase. Their income and consumption increased, but not their wealth. As for limiting salaries to be more tax efficient... I'm not sure how that works. The business doesn't pay that tax and I would think that the worker would prefer a higher after tax income even if it meant higher taxes. You know why your graph is irrelevant right ? Because even if the average tax rate didn't move, the 1% then (in 1979) and now (in 2010) is not the same and doesn't posses the same share of the national income.
So, your graph actually proves my argument is right if you add to it a graph comparing the share of the national income of the top 1% in 1979 to today : because the marginal taxation rate was lowered, it didn't limited the rising of inequalities (which is, the fact that the top 1% from 1979 to today posses an increasing part of the national income). The point of the graph is that marginal rates aren't the whole tax story. A 70% marginal rate doesn't mean that someone earning $1mm would actually pay more in taxes than they would today. The 70% marginal rate could come at a higher bracket and carry many more deductions and credits. What's the big deal about a 70% marginal rate that you can sidestep and not pay? I haven't said that a higher marginal rate wouldn't have an effect, I've just said that it's not the whole story. Which is absolutely true. Taxation rate and marginal taxation rate two entirely different being : the average taxation rate says a lot about the overall contribution of someone. The marginal taxation rate tells what happen when someone pass from one income to another. Having a high taxation rate is a way to understand the importance of public economy, welfare state and all those things in the economy of a country, while having a high marginal taxation rate prevent increasing income inequalities. Of course it is not "everything": some inflation could help, or you could tax the heritage, or even take away kids from their parents and give them a public education like in Thomas More's Utopia. Suffice to say, you can do a lot of things.
The point wasn't about average taxation throughout the entire economy. The point was about average taxation at really high income levels. Top marginal tax rates do not tell the full story about taxes at high income levels. A marginal tax rate of 70% doesn't necessarily mean that you will pay a 70% tax rate above the threshold limit. If your income is in non taxable muni bonds you can have a tax rate of 5,683% and you wouldn't give a crap because it's non taxable. The era of extremely high top marginal tax rates in the US was also the era before the AMT was introduced. The top marginal rates of then and now is not a strict apples to apples comparison.
Thresholds matter as well. There's a difference between taxing income over $1mm at a high rate and taxing income over $250K at the same high rate.
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On November 13 2013 02:43 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 01:50 sam!zdat wrote:On November 12 2013 17:29 packrat386 wrote:On November 12 2013 16:33 sam!zdat wrote:On November 12 2013 14:55 Danglars wrote:
That is the first thing that enters my mind when I hear Sam talking about this or that "exacerbat[ing] social inequality" or these expansionist conceptions of the welfare state. I wish you would listen to me sam, as someone who has had trouble listening to you in the past. It can get kind of difficult when your main stock is one liners. You don't often detail your objections, and it can kind of sound like the regular party line or w/e. he actually just ignored what I was saying and didn't listen and assumed that he knew what I meant (which was backwards from what I meant). thanks for your input though. the welfare state is bad because it is too big to fail. it's also not very dignified. also when you make comparisons to countries like france or sweden that is ignoring some very important and fundamental differences between the US and those countries (they are smaller, more homogenous, occupy different places in the world economy, and have much different political traditions). But you guys don't need to defend it to me: my position is that the welfare state is the only solution this side of the revolution. But it's just sort of a bandaid. Keep in mind also that the systems in countries like Sweden and France are not self-contained, they are dependent on exploitation of the global south etc and we can't take them naively as either 1) permanent stable structures or 2) as happy and nice as they might seem. I agree with some of your points (US and Europe are different, and we indeed are far from perfects), but you cannot hide yourself behind the supposed (and mystified) complexity of the inqualities to justify doing nothing.
I don't think sam is arguing for doing nothing. He pretty clearly supports revolution instead of bandaid political solutions.
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On November 13 2013 03:00 RCMDVA wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 02:54 Roe wrote:
Just think about that logic...A small portion doesn't mean it's not worth administering. If everyone in the US didn't have to worry so much about family trusts and estate planning? You think that would be worth more or less than $19 billion per year. There's probably way more than $19 billion spent per year on attorney fees to avoid estate taxes. It is not worth it.
Huh? It's not the government spending money on attorneys.
So what you're actually saying is that attorneys are finding loopholes for at least another 19billion a year, and therefore it's not worth the government's bother to administer the taxes to get another 19billion? Clearly that is nonsense.
In fact, this generates two different revenue streams: income tax on all those attorneys working to find loopholes (lets say 25% of that "way more than" 19billion), and the straight up 19billion itself! 
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I support the welfare state I just think it's a stopgap that doesn't actually address the problems. We need to fight for the welfare state but also look beyond it
my whole point is to try to break apart the mystified notion of an opposition between 'capitalism' and 'welfare state' (as e.g. Danglars would see it) and to point out that it is capitalism itself which necessitates the welfare state, and that the true opposition is between 'capitalism/welfare state' and 'radical emancipatory politics' (which of course remains an open project but one which I hold we are called to pursue)
danglars makes the mistake of a person who thinks that there is a choice between 'drunkenness' and 'hangover' and that these are opposed things. 'i am the party of drunkenness,' he says. 'drunkenness is good! Why are you the party of hangovers??'
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Republican have indicated they won't take up immigration reform this year, dimming hopes that Congress will address the issue before the Senate-passed bill dies at the end of the legislative session in early 2015.
Late Friday afternoon, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) leaked word to The Associated Press that there weren't enough days on the legislative calendar to vote on immigration in 2013 -- just 16 days remain. McCarthy's office confirmed the report to TPM moments later.
"It's an outrage that House leadership is signaling no floor action on immigration reform this year," said Frank Sharry, the executive director of the pro-reform group America's Voice. "They have all of November and most of December to take action."
Mark Krikorian, who leads the Center For Immigration Studies, which supports more restrictive immigration policies, said the announcement reveals that House GOP leaders recognize their voters oppose reform, even though they "want to be responsive to the corporate interests" pushing for an overhaul.
Source
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On November 13 2013 03:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 02:43 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 01:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 13 2013 00:49 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 00:43 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:On November 12 2013 16:15 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2013 15:07 IgnE wrote:
[quote]
I know this is a difficult concept for you to understand, since you would love to work part time and collect food stamps while making 18k a year, but most people who are on welfare would rather have a well-paying job. Maybe you do understand this, but your definition of "well-paying" is $2 for 16 hours of labor a day to make Nike shoes while living in corporate owned housing with bunk beds next to your coworkers. It's unclear at this point.
So what's the main driving force of inequality in the country/world at large right now? Welfare increasing the inequality gap according to you? I really don't understand your position. You seem to say that inequality is a problem and that if only we had freer markets it would take care of itself. Inequality at its extreme is a problem. I don't see that in America today. I do see a political party more concerned with beating the rich down into submission than the actual plight of the poor. They're fine with the entire country less prosperous, if the poor maintains their lot in life, as long as net inequality goes down. I believe the opposite ... that inequality taken alone tells very little and the poorest societies can be those with the lowest inequality. It's a misplaced focus as much as it is a disgusting political tactic. Exacerbate envy for political purposes. I find the people having your views are exactly those intent on policies that ensure the poor person on welfare will never be able to find a job with his skills. From taxation to regulation to minimum wage, the crusade is counterproductive to poverty. I brought up the welfare trap in regards to sam's conception of the welfare state, not on the topic of inequality. On November 12 2013 15:32 HunterX11 wrote:
[quote]
Remember that people believe that welfare queens are a thing in real life and not just a dogwhistle racism campaign tactic. The race card has served your cause well. In the absence of a debate on ideas, insinuate your opponents are racists. Keep creating the very same poverty you decry. Keep hounding those in society actually concerned with welfare reform. So this graph doesn't bother you: + Show Spoiler +That's not extreme inequality or you, personally, just don't see it out in your travels? Which political party is the one beating down the poor rich people into submission? The one led by the neoliberals or the other one led by the neoliberals? So according to you, if we had less welfare and fewer taxes the people collecting welfare right now could at least be earning $4 an hour picking oranges in Florida and apples in California. Do you not see the disconnect there? Your argument is that taxation and regulation makes it prohibitive to hire people who want to work, so if we removed those socialist barriers, we could get people currently on welfare out in the fields picking cotton instead of immigrants or people in the third world. How does that not result in higher inequality than the already egregious inequality seen in the above graph? Wealth inequality is really hard to deal with. I don't recall any plausible ideas out of the left to deal with that (mostly they seem to be concerned with income / consumption inequality). If you can think of any, remind me, it could be a good discussion. I don't know what's the best answer to that : "lol", "really ?" or a simple "what ?". How about fiscal redistribution ? Just consider america's history : in 1964, the marginal tax rate for richest people was at 91%, 70% in the 70s and now only around 25%. It is pretty easy to fight wealth inequalities, you just have to do something against it. Redistributing wealth is tricky because you need the wealth to stay wealth, otherwise the inequality persists. So you can't just redistribute, you need some mechanism to prevent the poor from selling the wealth to fund consumption. Otherwise you are dealing with income / consumption inequality, not wealth inequality. Comparing taxes from 1964 to today requires more than just looking at the top marginal rates. FYI, the top federal rate now is 39.6%, not 25%. Don't nitpick, and stop bullshitting me. Inequality persist because you... NO. Please, no. Please. I'm not nitpicking. The words wealth and income are different words. Wealth inequality is a different thing than income inequality. They are related, but they are not the same thing. And what does it needs more ?
You can't deny the fact that most countries have higher marginal taxation rates, and the higher the marginal taxation rate is, the lower inequalities are (50% in northern european countries, 45% in France, etc.). Also, if you put a high marginal taxation rate on wages, you prevent firms from giving too big salaries as they will try to minimize taxation.
Not to mention your argument means nothing because if the poor actually consume most of the surplus they gain because of the redistribution and even if this money actually goes back in the hand of the rich, the rich will again be taxed and thus the money will go back to the poor : it's a circuit, of course rich gain money from poor's consumption, the goal is not to minimize this flux (because it is beneficial to the economy), but to minimize the accumulation of flux (saving rate, patrimony, etc.) and this is entirely possible if you tax enough. I never made the claim that top marginal rates are irrelevant. Moreover, I made comments relating to wealth not income yet you keep arguing about income. If the poor consume what they've been given, they won't have the money anymore (they consumed it!) therefore, their wealth did not increase. Their income and consumption increased, but not their wealth. As for limiting salaries to be more tax efficient... I'm not sure how that works. The business doesn't pay that tax and I would think that the worker would prefer a higher after tax income even if it meant higher taxes. You know why your graph is irrelevant right ? Because even if the average tax rate didn't move, the 1% then (in 1979) and now (in 2010) is not the same and doesn't posses the same share of the national income.
So, your graph actually proves my argument is right if you add to it a graph comparing the share of the national income of the top 1% in 1979 to today : because the marginal taxation rate was lowered, it didn't limited the rising of inequalities (which is, the fact that the top 1% from 1979 to today posses an increasing part of the national income). The point of the graph is that marginal rates aren't the whole tax story. A 70% marginal rate doesn't mean that someone earning $1mm would actually pay more in taxes than they would today. The 70% marginal rate could come at a higher bracket and carry many more deductions and credits. What's the big deal about a 70% marginal rate that you can sidestep and not pay? I haven't said that a higher marginal rate wouldn't have an effect, I've just said that it's not the whole story. Which is absolutely true. Taxation rate and marginal taxation rate two entirely different being : the average taxation rate says a lot about the overall contribution of someone. The marginal taxation rate tells what happen when someone pass from one income to another. Having a high taxation rate is a way to understand the importance of public economy, welfare state and all those things in the economy of a country, while having a high marginal taxation rate prevent increasing income inequalities. Of course it is not "everything": some inflation could help, or you could tax the heritage, or even take away kids from their parents and give them a public education like in Thomas More's Utopia. Suffice to say, you can do a lot of things. The point wasn't about average taxation throughout the entire economy. The point was about average taxation at really high income levels. Top marginal tax rates do not tell the full story about taxes at high income levels. A marginal tax rate of 70% doesn't necessarily mean that you will pay a 70% tax rate above the threshold limit. If your income is in non taxable muni bonds you can have a tax rate of 5,683% and you wouldn't give a crap because it's non taxable. The era of extremely high top marginal tax rates in the US was also the era before the AMT was introduced. The top marginal rates of then and now is not a strict apples to apples comparison. Thresholds matter as well. There's a difference between taxing income over $1mm at a high rate and taxing income over $250K at the same high rate.
You're just playing with words.
If we increase marginal taxation rate a lot, would it greatly reduce inequalities ? Yes.
Would it be perfect ? Absolutly not.
Are there better option ? Yes, of course. for exemple Thomas Piketty proposed in his new book (The capital in the XXth century, he is the french specialist of wealth inequality and fiscality) a universal fiscal system, that he himself call "utilitarist utopia".
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EPT![[image loading]](http://assets.motherjones.com/politics/2011/inequality-page25_actualdistribwithlegend.png)
