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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. 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.
I agree that politicians generally focus on income inequality as a opposed to wealth inequality, but inheritance tax and land tax are two leftist (very broadly speaking) ideas related to it.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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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. Show nested quote +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. 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. 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 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).
If you think Scandinavia is a good example, you would see, how much the way how wealth is redistributed, matters.
Universal kindergarden, good public schools system, public Universities, a Well managed single payer healthcare, high goverment transperency, that lowers the danger of public spending going to private pockets.
However, as you can see, the model is not as much focused on just "making rich poor", as much as creating a wellfare state that provides highly-educated, high-quality, and high-payed labour force, and boosting it`s participation in politics.
High-tech export based economy, that heavilly rely on capital-intencive productions, is simply impossible without huge private capital to invest in it. Goverment invests into labour thrugh public services, Private sector invests into jobs. Not a lot of free handouts for the poor are left.
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sam!, don't you think there's a hard contradiction to surmont between the fact that "radical emancipatory politics" would (at least in my mind) tend to toward a very local form of organization and the high interdependance between states nowadays ? We need the revolution everywhere I fear.
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On November 13 2013 04:10 naastyOne 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. 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: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. 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). If you think Scandinavia is a good example, you would see, how much the way how wealth is redistributed, matters. Universal kindergarden, good public schools system, public Universities, a Well managed single payer healthcare, high goverment transperency, that lowers the danger of public spending going to private pockets. However, as you can see, the model is not as much focused on just "making rich poor", as much as creating a wellfare state that provides highly-educated, high-quality, and high-payed labour force, and boosting it`s participation in politics. High-tech export based economy, that heavilly rely on capital-intencive productions, is simply impossible without huge private capital to invest in it. Goverment invests into labour thrugh public services, Private sector invests into jobs. Not a lot of free handouts for the poor are left.
You're wrong, I never said scandinavian are the best exemple, I just pointed out the empiric evidence that with higher marginal taxation rate you have less inequalities. And having a high marginal taxation rate is not focussed on making rich poor.
About wealth and income, as I said wealth is a stock : it's the accumulation of flux, and those flux are the incomes. Yes it is not perfect, in fact you can't really fix wealth inequalities without a huge discussion on private property (and especially the property of the means of production) - something I would gladly do but most of you would not agree at all with it.
|
On November 13 2013 04:18 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 04:10 naastyOne 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. 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: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. 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). If you think Scandinavia is a good example, you would see, how much the way how wealth is redistributed, matters. Universal kindergarden, good public schools system, public Universities, a Well managed single payer healthcare, high goverment transperency, that lowers the danger of public spending going to private pockets. However, as you can see, the model is not as much focused on just "making rich poor", as much as creating a wellfare state that provides highly-educated, high-quality, and high-payed labour force, and boosting it`s participation in politics. High-tech export based economy, that heavilly rely on capital-intencive productions, is simply impossible without huge private capital to invest in it. Goverment invests into labour thrugh public services, Private sector invests into jobs. Not a lot of free handouts for the poor are left. You're wrong, I never said scandinavian are the best exemple, I just pointed out the empiric evidence that with higher marginal taxation rate you have less inequalities. And having a high marginal taxation rate is not focussed on making rich poor.
Your impirical evidence is not supported by fact, since it doesn`t take into account who will get the public money. If the system is corrupt, marginal tax rate is irrelevant.
High marginal tax rates is focused on making rich less rich. You argue the level, not principle.
On November 13 2013 04:18 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 04:10 naastyOne 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. 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: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. 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). If you think Scandinavia is a good example, you would see, how much the way how wealth is redistributed, matters. Universal kindergarden, good public schools system, public Universities, a Well managed single payer healthcare, high goverment transperency, that lowers the danger of public spending going to private pockets. However, as you can see, the model is not as much focused on just "making rich poor", as much as creating a wellfare state that provides highly-educated, high-quality, and high-payed labour force, and boosting it`s participation in politics. High-tech export based economy, that heavilly rely on capital-intencive productions, is simply impossible without huge private capital to invest in it. Goverment invests into labour thrugh public services, Private sector invests into jobs. Not a lot of free handouts for the poor are left. About wealth and income, as I said wealth is a stock : it's the accumulation of flux, and those flux are the incomes. Yes it is not perfect, in fact you can't really fix wealth inequalities without a huge discussion on private property (and especially the property of the means of production) - something I would gladly do but most of you would not agree at all with it.
Wealth is property. Land, Housing, car, can all bring in income. If you look at ainsent times, there was no property on means of production, and still, there was huge inequality, agruably way larger than today.
Oftentimes political and military power is also a great mean of income.
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On November 13 2013 04:25 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 04:18 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 04:10 naastyOne 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. 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: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. 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). If you think Scandinavia is a good example, you would see, how much the way how wealth is redistributed, matters. Universal kindergarden, good public schools system, public Universities, a Well managed single payer healthcare, high goverment transperency, that lowers the danger of public spending going to private pockets. However, as you can see, the model is not as much focused on just "making rich poor", as much as creating a wellfare state that provides highly-educated, high-quality, and high-payed labour force, and boosting it`s participation in politics. High-tech export based economy, that heavilly rely on capital-intencive productions, is simply impossible without huge private capital to invest in it. Goverment invests into labour thrugh public services, Private sector invests into jobs. Not a lot of free handouts for the poor are left. You're wrong, I never said scandinavian are the best exemple, I just pointed out the empiric evidence that with higher marginal taxation rate you have less inequalities. And having a high marginal taxation rate is not focussed on making rich poor. Your impirical evidence is not supported by fact, since it doesn`t take into account who will get the public money. If the system is corrupt, marginal tax rate is irrelevant. High marginal tax rates is focused on making rich less rich. You argue the level, not principle.
No and no.
![[image loading]](http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1159884/original.jpg)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w19075
There is a quick review of this study here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/28/income-inequality-study_n_3346073.html
Guess why the UK do even better than the US despite a bigger change in top marginal rate? Because their marginal taxation rate is still bigger (50% to 35%).
|
On November 13 2013 04:26 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 04:25 naastyOne wrote:On November 13 2013 04:18 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 04:10 naastyOne 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:
[quote]
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.
[quote]
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: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:
[quote]
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.
[quote]
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). If you think Scandinavia is a good example, you would see, how much the way how wealth is redistributed, matters. Universal kindergarden, good public schools system, public Universities, a Well managed single payer healthcare, high goverment transperency, that lowers the danger of public spending going to private pockets. However, as you can see, the model is not as much focused on just "making rich poor", as much as creating a wellfare state that provides highly-educated, high-quality, and high-payed labour force, and boosting it`s participation in politics. High-tech export based economy, that heavilly rely on capital-intencive productions, is simply impossible without huge private capital to invest in it. Goverment invests into labour thrugh public services, Private sector invests into jobs. Not a lot of free handouts for the poor are left. You're wrong, I never said scandinavian are the best exemple, I just pointed out the empiric evidence that with higher marginal taxation rate you have less inequalities. And having a high marginal taxation rate is not focussed on making rich poor. Your impirical evidence is not supported by fact, since it doesn`t take into account who will get the public money. If the system is corrupt, marginal tax rate is irrelevant. High marginal tax rates is focused on making rich less rich. You argue the level, not principle. No and no. http://www.nber.org/papers/w19075
So what, US is a tax heaven, also US has a tonne of foreign investments, while a lot of countries where the "rich" high marginal taxes, the "rich" just live in different country. For example Belgium and France, also US and Germany.
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On November 13 2013 04:32 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 04:26 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 04:25 naastyOne wrote:On November 13 2013 04:18 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 04:10 naastyOne 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:[quote] 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:On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 12 2013 16:32 IgnE wrote:[quote] 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). If you think Scandinavia is a good example, you would see, how much the way how wealth is redistributed, matters. Universal kindergarden, good public schools system, public Universities, a Well managed single payer healthcare, high goverment transperency, that lowers the danger of public spending going to private pockets. However, as you can see, the model is not as much focused on just "making rich poor", as much as creating a wellfare state that provides highly-educated, high-quality, and high-payed labour force, and boosting it`s participation in politics. High-tech export based economy, that heavilly rely on capital-intencive productions, is simply impossible without huge private capital to invest in it. Goverment invests into labour thrugh public services, Private sector invests into jobs. Not a lot of free handouts for the poor are left. You're wrong, I never said scandinavian are the best exemple, I just pointed out the empiric evidence that with higher marginal taxation rate you have less inequalities. And having a high marginal taxation rate is not focussed on making rich poor. Your impirical evidence is not supported by fact, since it doesn`t take into account who will get the public money. If the system is corrupt, marginal tax rate is irrelevant. High marginal tax rates is focused on making rich less rich. You argue the level, not principle. No and no. http://www.nber.org/papers/w19075 So you argue on a set of first-world countries, how about the rest?
I'm not writting a book on the subject, and I'm pretty sure we were talking about the US.
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On November 13 2013 04:34 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 04:32 naastyOne wrote:On November 13 2013 04:26 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 04:25 naastyOne wrote:On November 13 2013 04:18 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 04:10 naastyOne 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:
[quote]
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:On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:On November 12 2013 23:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
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). If you think Scandinavia is a good example, you would see, how much the way how wealth is redistributed, matters. Universal kindergarden, good public schools system, public Universities, a Well managed single payer healthcare, high goverment transperency, that lowers the danger of public spending going to private pockets. However, as you can see, the model is not as much focused on just "making rich poor", as much as creating a wellfare state that provides highly-educated, high-quality, and high-payed labour force, and boosting it`s participation in politics. High-tech export based economy, that heavilly rely on capital-intencive productions, is simply impossible without huge private capital to invest in it. Goverment invests into labour thrugh public services, Private sector invests into jobs. Not a lot of free handouts for the poor are left. You're wrong, I never said scandinavian are the best exemple, I just pointed out the empiric evidence that with higher marginal taxation rate you have less inequalities. And having a high marginal taxation rate is not focussed on making rich poor. Your impirical evidence is not supported by fact, since it doesn`t take into account who will get the public money. If the system is corrupt, marginal tax rate is irrelevant. High marginal tax rates is focused on making rich less rich. You argue the level, not principle. No and no. http://www.nber.org/papers/w19075 So you argue on a set of first-world countries, how about the rest? I'm not writting a book on the subject, and I'm pretty sure we were talking about the US.
US is a special case that needs to take the income of trans-national corporations into account, since Amerian top 1% benefited tremendously from investments arround the world. You can not just take it without including all the Chinese, Indian and mexican labour that benefits American top 1%.
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On November 13 2013 04:37 naastyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 04:34 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 04:32 naastyOne wrote:On November 13 2013 04:26 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 04:25 naastyOne wrote:On November 13 2013 04:18 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 04:10 naastyOne 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:
[quote]
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:On November 13 2013 00:22 WhiteDog wrote:
[quote]
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). If you think Scandinavia is a good example, you would see, how much the way how wealth is redistributed, matters. Universal kindergarden, good public schools system, public Universities, a Well managed single payer healthcare, high goverment transperency, that lowers the danger of public spending going to private pockets. However, as you can see, the model is not as much focused on just "making rich poor", as much as creating a wellfare state that provides highly-educated, high-quality, and high-payed labour force, and boosting it`s participation in politics. High-tech export based economy, that heavilly rely on capital-intencive productions, is simply impossible without huge private capital to invest in it. Goverment invests into labour thrugh public services, Private sector invests into jobs. Not a lot of free handouts for the poor are left. You're wrong, I never said scandinavian are the best exemple, I just pointed out the empiric evidence that with higher marginal taxation rate you have less inequalities. And having a high marginal taxation rate is not focussed on making rich poor. Your impirical evidence is not supported by fact, since it doesn`t take into account who will get the public money. If the system is corrupt, marginal tax rate is irrelevant. High marginal tax rates is focused on making rich less rich. You argue the level, not principle. No and no. http://www.nber.org/papers/w19075 So you argue on a set of first-world countries, how about the rest? I'm not writting a book on the subject, and I'm pretty sure we were talking about the US. US is a special case that needs to take the income of trans-national corporations into account, since Amerian top 1% benefited tremendously from investments arround the world.
It doesn't change anything about my point. Yes it is not perfect, and yes we could discuss it for days but the correlation between marginal taxation rate and inequalities is a fact.
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On November 13 2013 03:35 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 03:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote: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:
[quote]
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.
[quote]
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".
What words am I playing with?
I have never said that raising top marginal rates wouldn't reduce inequality or that it needed to be perfect in order to be valid. My proposition from the start was that reducing wealth inequality would be harder than reducing income or consumption inequality. You then brought up to marginal income tax rates to which I only refuted in so far as it wasn't a complete picture of taxation. You still haven't addressed the issue of wealth vs income inequality or why it's an irrelevant distinction.
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On November 13 2013 03:55 Sbrubbles 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. 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. I agree that politicians generally focus on income inequality as a opposed to wealth inequality, but inheritance tax and land tax are two leftist (very broadly speaking) ideas related to it.
Sort of. That's a tax on wealth, so it could potentially reduce the value of it, but it does nothing to increase the amount of wealth on the lower end.
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On November 13 2013 04:50 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 03:35 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 03:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote: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:[quote] 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". What words am I playing with? I have never said that raising top marginal rates wouldn't reduce inequality or that it needed to be perfect in order to be valid. My proposition from the start was that reducing wealth inequality would be harder than reducing income or consumption inequality. You then brought up to marginal income tax rates to which I only refuted in so far as it wasn't a complete picture of taxation. You still haven't addressed the issue of wealth vs income inequality or why it's an irrelevant distinction.
I've already adressed twice the problem of wealth vs income. Wealth is an accumulation of flux, and income is the flux. If you tax some specific location in the circuit enough, you prevent wealth inequalities from building up, that's the first point.
Second point, you can tax inheritage or push for some inflation, both of those would have a good impact on wealth inequalities, but in the end you will never be able to really adress wealth inequalities unless you completly change private property, something none of you are ready for (aside from sam I suppose).
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On November 13 2013 04:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 03:55 Sbrubbles 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. 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. I agree that politicians generally focus on income inequality as a opposed to wealth inequality, but inheritance tax and land tax are two leftist (very broadly speaking) ideas related to it. Sort of. That's a tax on wealth, so it could potentially reduce the value of it, but it does nothing to increase the amount of wealth on the lower end.
By taxing wealth, employers will simply avoid that tax and boost productivity, giving wealth to the lower end. If they're going to pay that money anyway, they'll use it instead to increase productivity of their company.
edit: income, wealth, bleh w/e
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On November 13 2013 04:17 corumjhaelen wrote:
sam!, don't you think there's a hard contradiction to surmont between the fact that "radical emancipatory politics" would (at least in my mind) tend to toward a very local form of organization and the high interdependance between states nowadays ? We need the revolution everywhere I fear.
As Foucault would say:
"I think to imagine another system is to extend our participation in the present system [...] We readily believe that the least we can expect of experiences, actions, and strategies is that they take into account the 'whole of society.' This seems absolutely essential for their existence. But i believe that this is asking a great deal, that it means imposing impossible conditions on our actions because this notion functions in a manner that prohibits the actualization, success, and perpetuation of these projects, 'the whole of society' is precisely that which should not be considered except as something to be destroyed. And then, we can only hope that it will never exist again."
But also:
"It is possible that the rough outline of a future society is supplied by the recent experiences with drugs, sex, communes, other forms of consciousness, and other forms of individuality. If scientific socialism emerged from the Utopias of the nineteenth century, it is possible that a real socialization will emerge, in the twentieth century, from experiences"
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On November 13 2013 05:13 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 04:17 corumjhaelen wrote:
sam!, don't you think there's a hard contradiction to surmont between the fact that "radical emancipatory politics" would (at least in my mind) tend to toward a very local form of organization and the high interdependance between states nowadays ? We need the revolution everywhere I fear. As Foucault would say: "I think to imagine another system is to extend our participation in the present system [...] We readily believe that the least we can expect of experiences, actions, and strategies is that they take into account the 'whole of society.' This seems absolutely essential for their existence. But i believe that this is asking a great deal, that it means imposing impossible conditions on our actions because this notion functions in a manner that prohibits the actualization, success, and perpetuation of these projects, 'the whole of society' is precisely that which should not be considered except as something to be destroyed. And then, we can only hope that it will never exist again." But also: "It is possible that the rough outline of a future society is supplied by the recent experiences with drugs, sex, communes, other forms of consciousness, and other forms of individuality. If scientific socialism emerged from the Utopias of the nineteenth century, it is possible that a real socialization will emerge, in the twentieth century, from experiences"
From which Foucault's book does this comes from ?
Nice quote.
edit: found.
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Well tell me too then^^
Good quote, but I'm not totally convinced this is a sufficient answer. I'm tempted to go sam's style and say that the word "emerge" shows that he's dodging a tough question :p
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On November 13 2013 05:27 corumjhaelen wrote:
Well tell me too then^^
Good quote, but I'm not totally convinced this is a sufficient answer. I'm tempted to go sam's style and say that the word "emerge" shows that he's dodging a tough question :p
It comes from : The Passion of Michel Foucault from James Miller. Apparently it exist in french - never heard about it.
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On November 13 2013 05:03 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2013 04:50 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 13 2013 03:35 WhiteDog wrote:On November 13 2013 03:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote: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:
[quote]
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". What words am I playing with? I have never said that raising top marginal rates wouldn't reduce inequality or that it needed to be perfect in order to be valid. My proposition from the start was that reducing wealth inequality would be harder than reducing income or consumption inequality. You then brought up to marginal income tax rates to which I only refuted in so far as it wasn't a complete picture of taxation. You still haven't addressed the issue of wealth vs income inequality or why it's an irrelevant distinction. I've already adressed twice the problem of wealth vs income. Wealth is an accumulation of flux, and income is the flux. If you tax some specific location in the circuit enough, you prevent wealth inequalities from building up, that's the first point. Second point, you can tax inheritage or push for some inflation, both of those would have a good impact on wealth inequalities, but in the end you will never be able to really adress wealth inequalities unless you completly change private property, something none of you are ready for (aside from sam I suppose).
This is the first time you're addressing it in this conversation.
So you're going to tax wealth buildup so that it doesn't build up so much? The only way I can see that working out is if the government takes the money and accumulates it or finds a way for lower income households to accumulate more. Otherwise we'll just end up exacerbating the current problem of under saving.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://assets.motherjones.com/politics/2011/inequality-page25_actualdistribwithlegend.png)
