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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
Or the basis for overthrowing monarchys and the aristocracy. The aristocracy were just people with a lot of wealth the law of the land greatly favored.
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On November 12 2017 02:39 Nevuk wrote:Trump says he believes Putin over US intel agencies Show nested quote +G: Did Russia’s attempts to meddle in US elections come up in the conversations?
A: He said he didn’t meddle, he said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times.
Q: Today?
A: “I just asked him again. He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election, he did not do what they are saying he did.”
Q: Do you believe him?
A: Well, look, I can’t stand there and argue with him, I would rather have him get out of Syria, to be honest with you. I would rather have, I would rather him— get to work with him on the Ukraine rather than standing and arguing about whether or not— because that whole thing was set up by the Democrats. I mean, they ought to Look at Podesta, they ought to look at all the things that they have done with the phony dossier. Those are the big events. Those are the big events. But Putin said he did not do what they said he did. And there are those that say, if he did do it, he wouldn’t have gotten caught, alright, which is a very interesting statement. But we have a good feeling toward getting things done. If we had a relationship with Russia, that would be a good thing. In fact, it would be a great thing, not a bad thing, because he could really help us on North Korea. We have a big problem with North Korea and China is helping us. And because of the lack of the relationship that we have with Russia, because of this artificial thing that’s happening with this Democratic-inspired thing. We could really be helped a lot, tremendously, with Russia having to do with North Korea. You know you are talking about millions and millions of lives. This isn’t baby stuff, this is the real deal. And if Russia helped us in addition to China, that problem would go away a lot faster.
Q: On election meddling, did you ask him the question?
A: Every time he sees me he says I didn’t do that and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. But he says I didn’t do that. I think he is very insulted by it, if you want to know the truth. Don’t forget. All he said was he never did that, he didn’t do that. I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country. Because again, again, if we had a relationship with Russia, North Korea, which is our single biggest problem right now—North Korea, it would be helped a lot. I think I’m doing very well with respect to China. They have cut off financing, they have cut off bank lines, they’ve cut off lots of oil and lots of other things, lots of trade and it’s having a big impact. But Russia, on the other hand, may be making up the difference. And if they are, that’s not a good thing. So having a relationship with Russia would be a great thing—not a good thing, it would be a great thing—especially as it relates to North Korea. And I’ll say this: Hillary had her stupid reset button that she spelled the word wrong, but she does not have what it takes to have that kind of relationship where you could call or you could do something and they would pull back from North Korea, or they would pull back from Syria, or maybe pull back from Ukraine. I mean, if we could solve the Ukraine problem. But this is really an artificial barrier that’s put in front of us for solving problems with Russia. He says that very strongly, he really seems to be insulted by it and he says he didn’t do it.
Q: Even if he didn’t bring it up one-one-one, do you believe him?
I think that he is very, very strong in the fact that he didn’t do it. And then you look and you look at what’s going on with Podesta, and you look at what’s going on with the server from the DNC and why didn’t the FBI take it? Why did they leave it? Why did a third party look at the server and not the FBI? You look at all of this stuff, and you says, what’s going on here? And the you hear it’s 17 agencies. Well, it’s three. And one is Brennan. And one is, whatever. I mean, give me a break. They’re political hacks. So you look at it, and then you have Brennan, you have Clapper and you have Comey. Comey’s proven now to be a liar and he’s proven to be a leaker. So you look at that. And you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with that. Now, you are not going to get into an argument, you are going to start talking about Syria and the Ukraine.
On October 26 2017 08:05 IgnE wrote:
Asking what Trump means with any given statement is like asking what a baby's cooing means or a dog's barking. Yeah, they mean something but it's just emotive noise lacking any complex semantic content.
You mean emotive racist & authoritarian noise.
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This does trend on the side of authoritarian noise come to think of it-dismissing all who disagree with your version of reality as liars and hacks, regardless of their qualifications or evidence, to reinforce your role as the only dispenser of truth
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United States42794 Posts
On November 12 2017 04:05 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 02:38 KwarK wrote:On November 12 2017 02:17 Falling wrote:
Well it rather depends what the wealth is tied up in. Regardless, simply burning it is bad because it didn't go anywhere. Even simply consuming it into oblivion, isn't so bad for society because they are purchasing those goods from someone somewhere, so the money is flowing back into the system. But if they are actually building upon the wealth, then that means the money is getting put to work in some way- building new businesses or expanding on them, or investing in other businesses, thus providing capital for other businesses, etc.
As I'm thinking about, I wonder if there is a basic assumption. To some extent, there doesn't need to be a wider societal benefit to family members inheriting wealth from their family- to some extent it's none of their business. We almost seem to be arguing for a hyper-individualistic view of humans to argue for a collectivization of that wealth to everyone. Whereas, I'm not arguing from the perspective of hyper-individualism, or collectivization: I am very family and clan orientated. I think it's right and good for families to leverage one generations gains (however small or big) for the next generation. "But they didn't earn it", doesn't really matter from this perspective, because the family earned it and it's the family's to distribute (after a little bit of taxes, such as our Property Transfer Tax, let's say. Inheritance is meritorious for it's own sake because it's the family, and family is not a dispassionate, economic unit where everyone must stand as their own isolated island.
But on another level, I'm arguing there is great value to the wider society on not breaking up inheritance. Here's where it matters: the first generation. There are these crazy people that will work like ninnies if they think they can better their family line. We lose that work ethic if inheritance is wiped out. Strangely, that crazy work drive doesn't seem to get passed down to the next generations very often. But we get are these empire builders because they can count on passing something along. Then the next two generations break up the empire and some other family of first generations of empire builders will rise to the fore. That's what we get- the labour and energy of the first generation, and then most of it we get back anyways because the second and third can't hang on to it. So it seems a pretty good deal to me both in the build up and dispersal. I don't wish to condescend you but your response seems to indicate that you don't know what money is. Money and value are different things. Burning money doesn't destroy anything, no more than printing money creates anything. The total money supply represents the totality of goods and labour available within the economy. The proportion of money you hold represents the proportion of that goods and labour you could expect to obtain through the auction of the free market. If you were to liquidate Bill Gates' fortune into $100 bills, stack them up, and then burn them all, there would be no loss of goods or labour. When you burn money the value that money represents endures, it does go somewhere, it goes to all the rest of the money still within the economic system. The total money supply always adds up to 100%. The "good" inheritor who inherits a billion dollars and invests it in a diversified portfolio and never has to work a day in his life may be a successful role model for us as capitalists, but ask yourself what he is actually contributing to the economy. His modest annual budgeted spending of $30m (an amount he can take without ever touching the principal) represents a vast amount of goods and services that he extracts from the economy as a whole, a zero sum game where each purchase he makes denies it to another by outbidding their available money. If, hypothetically, he drove off a cliff on the way to the bank to cash his $1b inheritance bearer bond, how would society be worse off? All the people who sold him their goods and labour when he purchased his diversified portfolio would be available to sell them to someone else. The total supply of money in existence would still have the same value, equal to the supply of goods and services available within the economy. The same investments could still be made, the same economic activity would continue, the only difference would be one fewer person consuming labour while providing none of their own. Edit: Imagine a reclusive rural landowner. He's generous so he allows his tenants to make payment of goods in kind, a fixed 5% of their harvest, delivered to his warehouse where a broker collects it and gives goods not produced in the village in return. What value is there to his labour? And what value is there to the labour he consumes? One day the villagers murder him and burn his deeds of landownership. Has anything of value been lost? They still deliver the 5% to the warehouse, but they divide the goods received among the village. What is the economic rationale for the existence of the landowner? This isn't a new argument. This is basically the premise of communism, which everyone is familiar with and knows is a failure in the real world. Also, I've become lost as to when we started talking about economics rather than morality.
Capitalism doesn't require absentee landlords to function. If you think it does, well, you're wrong.
There's no situation where you look at an economic environment and say "sure, it's good, but what it really needs is more absentee landlords".
Limiting unearned wealth transfers doesn't require the creation of a state run economy, nor the end of supply and demand dictating prices.
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On November 12 2017 03:35 ChristianS wrote:
Ultimately (and I’m sure everyone has stopped reading by now) I think Kwark is essentially right. Market value simply corresponds to what people are willing to pay you for something, not any morally innate value of the thing. Even if we assumed a well-functioning market (which, again, is usually not a good assumption), the market value would still not correspond well to the amount of good achieved in the world. If the price of wood is cut in half, the lumberjack need not introspect about why he hasn’t done as much good in the world lately. If the price of wood doubles, he has no reason to congratulate himself for doing so much more good in the world. All he can do is produce the lumber; after that, he’s at the whims of fate just like the rest of us.
As far as my quick read went, I'm in agreement with most of what you wrote in all but the last paragraph. So I won't comment on anything but the quoted part, but I think the rest was a good and badly-needed summary of what was discussed in this multi-day discussion and I appreciate that.
Let's go directly to your lumberjack example. I believe the question that originally spawned this debate was something like "Should not the fruits of society's labor be distributed proportionately to those who created them?" The lumberjack may have been fortunate or unfortunate when he arrived at the market and discovered the price halved or doubled, and he himself has no reason to congratulate himself or shame. But as far as society is concerned (assuming well-functioning market) the lumberjack created more value.
If the lumberjack had researched society's needs and chose his profession based on his anticipation of society's needs, should he not be rewarded for that? Furthermore, how is society to discern whether or not the lumberjack knew what the price of lumber was going to be that day?
This is where I think think the confusion between the two sides is. The well-functioning market does reward labor proportionally in a very specific moral light--the technical utilitarian sense where the intent of a laborer doesn't matter.
On the other hand, people tend to judge morality based on intent. So KwarK and GH argue that the wealthy capitalists reap disproportionate rewards relative to the moral intent of their labor.
I see their point, and I can agree to that, though there are several counterarguments:
1) Individuals' moral beliefs are essentially unique, and it's impossible to determine anyone's intent with certainty.
2) The largest commonality of all (Western?) individuals' moral beliefs is quite obviously something pretty similar to utilitarianism (though usually it factors in intent).
3) This isn't a direct counterargument, but KwarK/GH's assertion was invoked to make the claim that the wealthy have no moral claim to their wealth, and thus no moral defense against a more progressive tax code. This leap certainly isn't true (as I've argued) under usual human (Western?) moral/ethical beliefs, as raising taxes on previously earned wealth is logically equivalent to forcefully redistributing other's (past) time. On the other hand, I've never went as far as to say raising taxes is never justified. I was only refuting the extremeness of KwarK/GH's view.
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On November 12 2017 04:05 mozoku wrote:
This isn't a new argument. This is basically the premise of communism, which everyone is familiar with and knows is a failure in the real world.
What? Nothing Kwark is talking about relates to communism at all. Saying that the system gains nothing from arbitrary intergenerational transfer of the means of production is not the same as saying all the means of production should be state-owned.
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On November 12 2017 04:44 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 04:05 mozoku wrote:On November 12 2017 02:38 KwarK wrote:On November 12 2017 02:17 Falling wrote:
Well it rather depends what the wealth is tied up in. Regardless, simply burning it is bad because it didn't go anywhere. Even simply consuming it into oblivion, isn't so bad for society because they are purchasing those goods from someone somewhere, so the money is flowing back into the system. But if they are actually building upon the wealth, then that means the money is getting put to work in some way- building new businesses or expanding on them, or investing in other businesses, thus providing capital for other businesses, etc.
As I'm thinking about, I wonder if there is a basic assumption. To some extent, there doesn't need to be a wider societal benefit to family members inheriting wealth from their family- to some extent it's none of their business. We almost seem to be arguing for a hyper-individualistic view of humans to argue for a collectivization of that wealth to everyone. Whereas, I'm not arguing from the perspective of hyper-individualism, or collectivization: I am very family and clan orientated. I think it's right and good for families to leverage one generations gains (however small or big) for the next generation. "But they didn't earn it", doesn't really matter from this perspective, because the family earned it and it's the family's to distribute (after a little bit of taxes, such as our Property Transfer Tax, let's say. Inheritance is meritorious for it's own sake because it's the family, and family is not a dispassionate, economic unit where everyone must stand as their own isolated island.
But on another level, I'm arguing there is great value to the wider society on not breaking up inheritance. Here's where it matters: the first generation. There are these crazy people that will work like ninnies if they think they can better their family line. We lose that work ethic if inheritance is wiped out. Strangely, that crazy work drive doesn't seem to get passed down to the next generations very often. But we get are these empire builders because they can count on passing something along. Then the next two generations break up the empire and some other family of first generations of empire builders will rise to the fore. That's what we get- the labour and energy of the first generation, and then most of it we get back anyways because the second and third can't hang on to it. So it seems a pretty good deal to me both in the build up and dispersal. I don't wish to condescend you but your response seems to indicate that you don't know what money is. Money and value are different things. Burning money doesn't destroy anything, no more than printing money creates anything. The total money supply represents the totality of goods and labour available within the economy. The proportion of money you hold represents the proportion of that goods and labour you could expect to obtain through the auction of the free market. If you were to liquidate Bill Gates' fortune into $100 bills, stack them up, and then burn them all, there would be no loss of goods or labour. When you burn money the value that money represents endures, it does go somewhere, it goes to all the rest of the money still within the economic system. The total money supply always adds up to 100%. The "good" inheritor who inherits a billion dollars and invests it in a diversified portfolio and never has to work a day in his life may be a successful role model for us as capitalists, but ask yourself what he is actually contributing to the economy. His modest annual budgeted spending of $30m (an amount he can take without ever touching the principal) represents a vast amount of goods and services that he extracts from the economy as a whole, a zero sum game where each purchase he makes denies it to another by outbidding their available money. If, hypothetically, he drove off a cliff on the way to the bank to cash his $1b inheritance bearer bond, how would society be worse off? All the people who sold him their goods and labour when he purchased his diversified portfolio would be available to sell them to someone else. The total supply of money in existence would still have the same value, equal to the supply of goods and services available within the economy. The same investments could still be made, the same economic activity would continue, the only difference would be one fewer person consuming labour while providing none of their own. Edit: Imagine a reclusive rural landowner. He's generous so he allows his tenants to make payment of goods in kind, a fixed 5% of their harvest, delivered to his warehouse where a broker collects it and gives goods not produced in the village in return. What value is there to his labour? And what value is there to the labour he consumes? One day the villagers murder him and burn his deeds of landownership. Has anything of value been lost? They still deliver the 5% to the warehouse, but they divide the goods received among the village. What is the economic rationale for the existence of the landowner? This isn't a new argument. This is basically the premise of communism, which everyone is familiar with and knows is a failure in the real world. Also, I've become lost as to when we started talking about economics rather than morality. Capitalism doesn't require absentee landlords to function. If you think it does, well, you're wrong. There's no situation where you look at an economic environment and say "sure, it's good, but what it really needs is more absentee landlords". Limiting unearned wealth transfers doesn't require the creation of a state run economy, nor the end of supply and demand dictating prices.
When did I say anything about a state? Nobody is going to invest when they receive 0% of the returns. Doesn't matter if it's state-run or anarcho.
If you're trying to make this about the estate tax, capital gains tax, and their economic value, I'm not interested. It's been discussed to death and it's not much related at all to where we started (i.e. morality).
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Even in an intentless utilitarian moral scheme, the market doesn't maximize utility because different people have different purchasing power. As I said, if you could feed a bunch of orphans or one rich person, a utilitarian scheme would probably favor the former. The market favors whichever pays better.
If you weight the utility produced for a person by their purchasing power, a well-functioning market maximizes that.
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On November 12 2017 04:05 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 02:38 KwarK wrote:On November 12 2017 02:17 Falling wrote:
Well it rather depends what the wealth is tied up in. Regardless, simply burning it is bad because it didn't go anywhere. Even simply consuming it into oblivion, isn't so bad for society because they are purchasing those goods from someone somewhere, so the money is flowing back into the system. But if they are actually building upon the wealth, then that means the money is getting put to work in some way- building new businesses or expanding on them, or investing in other businesses, thus providing capital for other businesses, etc.
As I'm thinking about, I wonder if there is a basic assumption. To some extent, there doesn't need to be a wider societal benefit to family members inheriting wealth from their family- to some extent it's none of their business. We almost seem to be arguing for a hyper-individualistic view of humans to argue for a collectivization of that wealth to everyone. Whereas, I'm not arguing from the perspective of hyper-individualism, or collectivization: I am very family and clan orientated. I think it's right and good for families to leverage one generations gains (however small or big) for the next generation. "But they didn't earn it", doesn't really matter from this perspective, because the family earned it and it's the family's to distribute (after a little bit of taxes, such as our Property Transfer Tax, let's say. Inheritance is meritorious for it's own sake because it's the family, and family is not a dispassionate, economic unit where everyone must stand as their own isolated island.
But on another level, I'm arguing there is great value to the wider society on not breaking up inheritance. Here's where it matters: the first generation. There are these crazy people that will work like ninnies if they think they can better their family line. We lose that work ethic if inheritance is wiped out. Strangely, that crazy work drive doesn't seem to get passed down to the next generations very often. But we get are these empire builders because they can count on passing something along. Then the next two generations break up the empire and some other family of first generations of empire builders will rise to the fore. That's what we get- the labour and energy of the first generation, and then most of it we get back anyways because the second and third can't hang on to it. So it seems a pretty good deal to me both in the build up and dispersal. I don't wish to condescend you but your response seems to indicate that you don't know what money is. Money and value are different things. Burning money doesn't destroy anything, no more than printing money creates anything. The total money supply represents the totality of goods and labour available within the economy. The proportion of money you hold represents the proportion of that goods and labour you could expect to obtain through the auction of the free market. If you were to liquidate Bill Gates' fortune into $100 bills, stack them up, and then burn them all, there would be no loss of goods or labour. When you burn money the value that money represents endures, it does go somewhere, it goes to all the rest of the money still within the economic system. The total money supply always adds up to 100%. The "good" inheritor who inherits a billion dollars and invests it in a diversified portfolio and never has to work a day in his life may be a successful role model for us as capitalists, but ask yourself what he is actually contributing to the economy. His modest annual budgeted spending of $30m (an amount he can take without ever touching the principal) represents a vast amount of goods and services that he extracts from the economy as a whole, a zero sum game where each purchase he makes denies it to another by outbidding their available money. If, hypothetically, he drove off a cliff on the way to the bank to cash his $1b inheritance bearer bond, how would society be worse off? All the people who sold him their goods and labour when he purchased his diversified portfolio would be available to sell them to someone else. The total supply of money in existence would still have the same value, equal to the supply of goods and services available within the economy. The same investments could still be made, the same economic activity would continue, the only difference would be one fewer person consuming labour while providing none of their own. Edit: Imagine a reclusive rural landowner. He's generous so he allows his tenants to make payment of goods in kind, a fixed 5% of their harvest, delivered to his warehouse where a broker collects it and gives goods not produced in the village in return. What value is there to his labour? And what value is there to the labour he consumes? One day the villagers murder him and burn his deeds of landownership. Has anything of value been lost? They still deliver the 5% to the warehouse, but they divide the goods received among the village. What is the economic rationale for the existence of the landowner? This isn't a new argument. This is basically the premise of communism, which everyone is familiar with and knows is a failure in the real world. Also, I've become lost as to when we started talking about economics rather than morality.
I mean the premise here is that the money supply is in long term decoupled from the `real' economy, which to the best of my knowledge is the assumption underpinning modern macroeconomic theory.
To weigh in on the argument, as I see it `money' exists only in the context of society and so it makes no sense to claim that anyone has an innate moral right to money (either their `own' or `others') outside of the political decisions of society.
There is no law of nature that says that insider trading should be illegal, yet if one engages in such behavior society takes their money from them and this is considered (by most people) morally right. Similarly, what is the law of nature that says that I shouldn't be allowed to extract money from my neighbor in exchange for not telling her husband about her infidelity? Yet if I tried to, society would take my money from me and put me in jail.
Similarly if society chooses to enact a progressive tax code, no ones money is being stolen, because once you have accepted the concept of money in the first place you have also accepted that you live in a society of more than 1 person, and therefore your world is not entirely your own.
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On November 12 2017 04:44 KwarK wrote:
Capitalism doesn't require absentee landlords to function. If you think it does, well, you're wrong.
There's no situation where you look at an economic environment and say "sure, it's good, but what it really needs is more absentee landlords".
Limiting unearned wealth transfers doesn't require the creation of a state run economy, nor the end of supply and demand dictating prices.
Why would capitalism require a non-existent thing, that being absentee landlords, to function?
The entire premise of absentee capital owners is idiotic and based on some delusion that managing and saving money are not valuable skills that are rare in society and also perform a function.
On November 12 2017 05:30 TheYango wrote:
What? Nothing Kwark is talking about relates to communism at all. Saying that the system gains nothing from arbitrary intergenerational transfer of the means of production is not the same as saying all the means of production should be state-owned.
Why is inter-generational transfer arbitrary again? Seems like those transfers are the opposite of arbitrary and are, in fact, a planned outcome of the wealth creator.
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On November 12 2017 05:35 mozoku wrote:
When did I say anything about a state? Nobody is going to invest when they receive 0% of the returns. Doesn't matter if it's state-run or anarcho.
So if I understand your argument here is that the ultra-wealthy have no incentive to invest when that investment does not provide them with any practical gain, since once you're sufficiently wealthy, there's no longer any practical benefit to becoming even more wealthy other than to leave more money to your descendants.
Where I believe you're losing Kwark with this argument is the fact that most of the accumulation of personal wealth that transformed the conventionally wealthy into the ultra-wealthy today is via the "absentee landlords" that Kwark is referring to i.e. wealth generation that is purely related to ownership of some other wealth generating apparatus and scraping off a fraction of it. Removing the incentive for the conventionally wealthy to become ultra-wealthy doesn't suddenly break the system because becoming ultra-wealthy from a state of being conventionally wealthy is not done by generating value for the system to begin with. And removing the incentive for the wealthy to become ultra-wealthy does not remove the incentive for the not-wealthy to become wealthy.
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Some reframes that might help people. First off, the Estate Tax is also the Gift Tax. It's applies after approximately $5.5 million in money given away, over and beyond $14,000 a year. While the person giving money away is responsible for paying tax on gifts beyond the $5.5 million lifetime cap, that money is not being taxed twice. The Estate/Gift tax is taxing income the recipient is receiving.
Another reframe that I don't have the knowledge to really argue for. The government is collecting estate tax and higher tax on higher income brackets as reasonable payment for those people receiving a larger proportion of the benefit of the government enforcing property rights. This can start getting into the nature of property rights, though.
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Tell me this man is not obligated to kiss up to Putin
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On November 12 2017 06:08 Kyadytim wrote:
Some reframes that might help people. First off, the Estate Tax is also the Gift Tax. It's applies after approximately $5.5 million in money given away, over and beyond $14,000 a year. While the person giving money away is responsible for paying tax on gifts beyond the $5.5 million lifetime cap, that money is not being taxed twice. The Estate/Gift tax is taxing income the recipient is receiving.
Another reframe that I don't have the knowledge to really argue for. The government is collecting estate tax and higher tax on higher income brackets as reasonable payment for those people receiving a larger proportion of the benefit of the government enforcing property rights. This can start getting into the nature of property rights, though.
They're collecting higher tax on higher income brackets even in flat taxes, because percentages work that higher income means more tax paid.
The trouble is justifying double and tripling and quadrupling the tax on the same assets (corporate tax rate, capital gains taxes, dividend tax, estate tax). That's what you can find mozoku and Clutz arguing over the last pages (there is no good moral argument for the estate tax, also larger society takes a loss in that scheme), and essentially what you must argue against in any attempted reframe.
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On November 12 2017 05:46 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 05:35 mozoku wrote:
When did I say anything about a state? Nobody is going to invest when they receive 0% of the returns. Doesn't matter if it's state-run or anarcho. So if I understand your argument here is that the ultra-wealthy have no incentive to invest when that investment does not provide them with any practical gain, since once you're sufficiently wealthy, there's no longer any practical benefit to becoming even more wealthy other than to leave more money to your descendants. Where I believe you're losing Kwark with this argument is the fact that most of the accumulation of personal wealth that transformed the conventionally wealthy into the ultra-wealthy today is via the "absentee landlords" that Kwark is referring to i.e. wealth generation that is purely related to ownership of some other wealth generating apparatus and scraping off a fraction of it. Removing the incentive for the conventionally wealthy to become ultra-wealthy doesn't suddenly break the system because becoming ultra-wealthy from a state of being conventionally wealthy is not done by generating value for the system to begin with. And removing the incentive for the wealthy to become ultra-wealthy does not remove the incentive for the not-wealthy to become wealthy.
Not quite what I meant to say, but it's my fault for being overly brief.
KwarK is suggesting that the economy would be better off without the "leeches," in other words if the non-laboring capital class began to contribute labor. The only way to eliminate "leeching" (other than forced labor) would be to tax returns on investments by 100% (else some degree of leeching would obviously exist). As someone who owns capital, if the upside to every investment is zero profit, I have no incentive to invest (as every investment carries some downside risk, my expected return is negative and probability of a positive return is zero due to said tax). As the government would then be the only investor left, there is no capital market and you have essentially the equivalent of centrally-planned economy.
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On November 12 2017 06:32 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 05:46 TheYango wrote:On November 12 2017 05:35 mozoku wrote:
When did I say anything about a state? Nobody is going to invest when they receive 0% of the returns. Doesn't matter if it's state-run or anarcho. So if I understand your argument here is that the ultra-wealthy have no incentive to invest when that investment does not provide them with any practical gain, since once you're sufficiently wealthy, there's no longer any practical benefit to becoming even more wealthy other than to leave more money to your descendants. Where I believe you're losing Kwark with this argument is the fact that most of the accumulation of personal wealth that transformed the conventionally wealthy into the ultra-wealthy today is via the "absentee landlords" that Kwark is referring to i.e. wealth generation that is purely related to ownership of some other wealth generating apparatus and scraping off a fraction of it. Removing the incentive for the conventionally wealthy to become ultra-wealthy doesn't suddenly break the system because becoming ultra-wealthy from a state of being conventionally wealthy is not done by generating value for the system to begin with. And removing the incentive for the wealthy to become ultra-wealthy does not remove the incentive for the not-wealthy to become wealthy. Not quite what I meant to say, but it's my fault for being overly brief. KwarK is suggesting that the economy would be better off without the "leeches," in other words if the non-laboring capital class began to contribute labor. The only way to eliminate "leeching" (other than forced labor) would be to tax returns on investments by 100% (else some degree of leeching would obviously exist). As someone who owns capital, if the upside to every investment is zero profit, I have no incentive to invest (as every investment carries some downside risk, my expected return is negative and probability of a positive return is zero due to said tax). As the government would then be the only investor left, there is no capital market and you have essentially the equivalent of centrally-planned economy.
Where the hell did Kwark advocate 100% capital gains tax? It really looks like you're off in a room by yourself fighting arguments nobody made. Kwark favors free market capitalism, generally
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On November 12 2017 03:08 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 02:39 Nevuk wrote:Trump says he believes Putin over US intel agencies G: Did Russia’s attempts to meddle in US elections come up in the conversations?
A: He said he didn’t meddle, he said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times.
Q: Today?
A: “I just asked him again. He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election, he did not do what they are saying he did.”
Q: Do you believe him?
A: Well, look, I can’t stand there and argue with him, I would rather have him get out of Syria, to be honest with you. I would rather have, I would rather him— get to work with him on the Ukraine rather than standing and arguing about whether or not— because that whole thing was set up by the Democrats. I mean, they ought to Look at Podesta, they ought to look at all the things that they have done with the phony dossier. Those are the big events. Those are the big events. But Putin said he did not do what they said he did. And there are those that say, if he did do it, he wouldn’t have gotten caught, alright, which is a very interesting statement. But we have a good feeling toward getting things done. If we had a relationship with Russia, that would be a good thing. In fact, it would be a great thing, not a bad thing, because he could really help us on North Korea. We have a big problem with North Korea and China is helping us. And because of the lack of the relationship that we have with Russia, because of this artificial thing that’s happening with this Democratic-inspired thing. We could really be helped a lot, tremendously, with Russia having to do with North Korea. You know you are talking about millions and millions of lives. This isn’t baby stuff, this is the real deal. And if Russia helped us in addition to China, that problem would go away a lot faster.
Q: On election meddling, did you ask him the question?
A: Every time he sees me he says I didn’t do that and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. But he says I didn’t do that. I think he is very insulted by it, if you want to know the truth. Don’t forget. All he said was he never did that, he didn’t do that. I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country. Because again, again, if we had a relationship with Russia, North Korea, which is our single biggest problem right now—North Korea, it would be helped a lot. I think I’m doing very well with respect to China. They have cut off financing, they have cut off bank lines, they’ve cut off lots of oil and lots of other things, lots of trade and it’s having a big impact. But Russia, on the other hand, may be making up the difference. And if they are, that’s not a good thing. So having a relationship with Russia would be a great thing—not a good thing, it would be a great thing—especially as it relates to North Korea. And I’ll say this: Hillary had her stupid reset button that she spelled the word wrong, but she does not have what it takes to have that kind of relationship where you could call or you could do something and they would pull back from North Korea, or they would pull back from Syria, or maybe pull back from Ukraine. I mean, if we could solve the Ukraine problem. But this is really an artificial barrier that’s put in front of us for solving problems with Russia. He says that very strongly, he really seems to be insulted by it and he says he didn’t do it.
Q: Even if he didn’t bring it up one-one-one, do you believe him?
I think that he is very, very strong in the fact that he didn’t do it. And then you look and you look at what’s going on with Podesta, and you look at what’s going on with the server from the DNC and why didn’t the FBI take it? Why did they leave it? Why did a third party look at the server and not the FBI? You look at all of this stuff, and you says, what’s going on here? And the you hear it’s 17 agencies. Well, it’s three. And one is Brennan. And one is, whatever. I mean, give me a break. They’re political hacks. So you look at it, and then you have Brennan, you have Clapper and you have Comey. Comey’s proven now to be a liar and he’s proven to be a leaker. So you look at that. And you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with that. Now, you are not going to get into an argument, you are going to start talking about Syria and the Ukraine.
This is just straight up cult of personality building for Putin lol. From the POTUS. Putin is so good he would never get caught, infallible guy. Show nested quote +But Putin said he did not do what they said he did. And there are those that say, if he did do it, he wouldn’t have gotten caught, alright, which is a very interesting statement. and this last part is just magical Show nested quote +And the you hear it’s 17 agencies. Well, it’s three. And one is Brennan. And one is, whatever. I mean, give me a break. They’re political hacks. So you look at it, and then you have Brennan, you have Clapper and you have Comey. Comey’s proven now to be a liar and he’s proven to be a leaker. So you look at that. And you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with that
This is actually really disgusting. For all of Trump's empty talk about "support the troops" he does not seem to know or care that a large portion of the intelligence agencies are uniformed military. For instance, a large portion of the NSA are active duty soldiers. (I can't actually find any specific figures on what percentage of NSA is military, but I have seen in articles, books, and a documentary that a significant portion of NSA is active duty military.)
EDIT: Also the anarcho-capitalists and the anarcho-socialists have destroyed my entire country in Victoria 2 before, so I don't like either of them. 
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Embattled Alabama Senate Republican candidate Roy Moore once cast the lone vote in favor of a man accused of raping a four-year-old boy.
In 2015, Roy Moore was performing his second stint as a justice sitting on the Alabama Supreme Court–Moore was previously removed from office for ignoring a federal court order mandating the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building.
The Alabama Supreme Court had the opportunity to hear the case of one Eric Lemont Higdon, a man accused and convicted of two sodomy charges due to sexual assault against a four-year-old at Mama’s Place Christian Academy in Clay, Alabama.
One of those convictions was first-degree sodomy of a child less than 12 years old. The other conviction was first-degree sodomy by forcible compulsion. Essentially, the first conviction was for statutory rape; the second for forcible rape.
Higdon’s conviction on the forcible rape charge was eventually overturned on appeal. The state, by way of prosecutor Luther Strange, appealed that decision and the Alabama Supreme Court took the case up for review.
Eight of the nine justices on the panel found that the appeals court had erred. Their legal logic was such that a 17-year-old’s sexual assault of a four-year-old was enough to produce in the mind of the four-year-old, an “implied threat of serious physical injury.” The decision was reversed and remanded and Higdon’s conviction was reinstated.
Roy Moore dissented from that opinion. He wrote:
Because there was no evidence in this case of an implied threat of serious physical injury…or of an implied threat of death, Higdon cannot be convicted of sodomy in the first degree “by forcible compulsion.”
lawnewz.com
Nothing new, but a pleasant reminder
A former colleague of GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore said Saturday that it was "common knowledge" that the Alabama Republican dated high school girls when he worked in the Etowah County District Attorney's Office in the 1980s.
In a statement to CNN, Teresa Jones, who served as deputy district attorney for Etowah County, Ala., from 1982 until 1985, said that multiple people thought it was unusual that Moore dated high school girls, but that no one ever raised the matter with him.
"It was common knowledge that Roy Moore dated high school girls, everyone we knew thought it was weird," Jones told CNN. "We wondered why someone his age would hang out at high school football games and the mall ... but you really wouldn't say anything to someone like that."
Moore, now 70, served as the assistant district attorney for Etowah County from 1977 until 1982.
Jones's comments come two days after an explosive Washington Post report detailed allegations that Moore pursued sexual and romantic relationships with teenage girls when he was in his early 30s.
One of Moore's accusers, Leigh Corfman, told the Post that the former Alabama Supreme Court justice initiated a sexual encounter with her in 1979, when she was just 14 and he was 32.
Moore has vehemently denied Corfman's allegation. But in an interview on Sean Hannity's radio program on Friday, he did not rule out that he dated girls in their late teens when he was in his 30s, saying that he did not remember doing so.
On Saturday, in his first public appearance since The Washington Post report was published, Moore said that the allegations were politically motivated, and that he had never engaged in any sort of sexual misconduct.
Still, the allegations have prompted condemnation from many Republican lawmakers and officials, who have called on Moore to step aside in Alabama's special Senate election if the accounts are true.
thehill.com
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On November 12 2017 06:25 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 06:08 Kyadytim wrote:
Some reframes that might help people. First off, the Estate Tax is also the Gift Tax. It's applies after approximately $5.5 million in money given away, over and beyond $14,000 a year. While the person giving money away is responsible for paying tax on gifts beyond the $5.5 million lifetime cap, that money is not being taxed twice. The Estate/Gift tax is taxing income the recipient is receiving.
Another reframe that I don't have the knowledge to really argue for. The government is collecting estate tax and higher tax on higher income brackets as reasonable payment for those people receiving a larger proportion of the benefit of the government enforcing property rights. This can start getting into the nature of property rights, though. They're collecting higher tax on higher income brackets even in flat taxes, because percentages work that higher income means more tax paid. The trouble is justifying double and tripling and quadrupling the tax on the same assets (corporate tax rate, capital gains taxes, dividend tax, estate tax). That's what you can find mozoku and Clutz arguing over the last pages (there is no good moral argument for the estate tax, also larger society takes a loss in that scheme), and essentially what you must argue against in any attempted reframe.
The problem here is once again a deliberate misrepresenting of facts.
Stuff gets taxed when it changes hands from one person to another. Tax on income means the money gets taxed when it moves from your boss to you. Change on consumption means the money gets taxed when it moves from you to a store. Corporate tax means money gets taxed when it moves from someone to the corporation. Dividend Tax means money gets taxed when it moves from the corporation to a person. And estate tax means that the money gets taxed when it moves from a dead man to his descendants.
This whole "The same money must not be taxed twice!!!" argument is based on a completely superficial idea of how stuff works. It only works if you only know the world from the position of an employee, and don't think about stuff too hard. In that case, it makes superficial sense that once the money is yours after taxes, it is yours. And since in this worldview there are only three entities, namely you, the state, and strangers, your family obviously counts as an extension of yourself.
If you stop to think about the whole thing even slightly, the complete argument makes no sense whatsoever.
Also, there is an incredibly good moral argument for an estate tax: Hereditary nobility is a bad thing, and fundamentally doesn't really fit into a democratic worldview where people are seen as being equal. In fact, an estate tax is about the best tax one can imagine in my opinion.
The only person who loses something, the heir, never did anything to actually earn the money anyways, and should thus be happy for any amount of free money that he gets. The person that died doesn't lose anything since he is dead. Take this as opposed to taxes on money that people actually earned, like payroll for example. I just don't see an argument that is fine with taxing money that people actually earn, and not fine with taxing money that people just happen to get for doing nothing but being lucky enough to be born into a rich family.
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EPT
