EPTLiberal Internet? - Page 15
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rockon1215
United States612 Posts
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kzn
United States1218 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:31 Djzapz wrote:Might have something to do with raising taxes 6 years out of 8. No, it doesn't. Tax receipts are taken year-by-year. Tax receipts actually, according to Wikipedia, increased after the Kemp-Roth act. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:33 kzn wrote: No, it doesn't. Tax receipts are taken year-by-year. Tax receipts actually, according to Wikipedia, increased after the Kemp-Roth act. I'm saying I hope you realize that Reagan had to raise taxes by necessity for an obvious reason and that's where Bush failed even more. | ||
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kzn
United States1218 Posts
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Tyraz
New Zealand310 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:34 Djzapz wrote: I'm saying I hope you realize that Reagan had to raise taxes by necessity for an obvious reason and that's where Bush failed even more. Hey kids; about that MSN you were gonna swap... Did you ever get round to doing that? | ||
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jalstar
United States8198 Posts
1. Revenue as a % of GDP is too low for a peak to show up. 2. Too many other variables are involved. ![[image loading]](http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/images/0002xK-7283.gif) | ||
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:08 Djzapz wrote: People wouldn't give a sufficient amount of money to build an actual infrastructure. Trying that would certainly be disastrous. If you think otherwise you make huge assumptions about human nature. If I'm not mistaken, the NJ turnpike was a private highway. But thats a little anecdote. You mean the building of roads is something so impossible to do in private hands that we just need someone to force people to build them? What's so different in a million-dollar highway to a million-dollar building? Do I make huge assumptions to say that the same money (or less) you give to the government could be given to a road-building agency through voluntary means? The agency would have a direct incentive through tolls and other voluntary means of collection, and would be in competition to other agencies... What's so different about roads that makes the usual market competition impossible? On July 06 2010 13:08 Djzapz wrote: Oh so you mean we could tax all their money, or even none of their money, and the prices of stuff wouldn't change, because they'd take that hike/cut like men, and not do anything to preserve nor out-compete other entrepreneurs out of self-interest?Tax-cutting the rich doesn't affect the production costs and such. Lowering their taxes wouldn't directly affect their prices in a significant way. On July 06 2010 13:08 Djzapz wrote: What evidence do you have that a country without a fair amount of taxation can take off at all, it has never even come close to happen. In the US, you can get an OK job fairly easily, get a comfortable apartment or even a house. You get education easily. All of this comes from the taxes people paid before. If people were going "Free for all" like what you're advocating, it would be in the same state as all of the other countries which have tried to do that. Poor and underdeveloped. The countries who have tried flat taxes have done really badly if you care. You mean the government built the apartments, the businesses, the colleges...? What other countries? I'm against any tax by principle. Even if you say it's necessary, I'll shout out "necessary for what?" What are your ends that are so important to men yet so voluntarily unreachable that justifies coercion? I'm just pointing out that the state of things is no justification for itself. That's a circular argument. "it is therefore it should be". But if it were any other way, the argument would be the same. So it doesn't justify why it is, or rather, should be. On July 06 2010 13:08 Djzapz wrote: Provided you were raised in the US, so little of what you have would have been so easy to reach if there wasn't a government taking money from people in order to make it work. If you don't want to pay taxes, go away. The only reason why you want to stay in the US is because it's a good place to live. WHY is it a good place to live? Because it was built to be a good place to live. It was built with taxes. Taxes which used to be a lot higher, btw. Ok, another odd analogy of mine: If technology today was at the point where we could transfer our minds into other bodies, does that mean that rape would be justifiable in that you could switch to another body for a certain sum of money? I certainly am thankful that we're able to move and stuff (even with all the immigration barriers), but having that option still doesn't justify one's property to be violated where he is at... On July 06 2010 13:08 Djzapz wrote: People who try to argue for any type of anarchy expect people to be better than they are. If you were to explain anarcho-capitalism, you would make a lot of assumptions about how to build an utopia. If it could work it would be wonderful but it can't. Well if you read into praxeology, the premises are actually quite agreeable, and I think you'd agree that man would most often act on it's best interest. It just turns out that peace *is* in man's best interest. Violence is costly, especially in today's technologically enabled world where security and retaliation are so much more efficient in stopping it. On July 06 2010 13:08 Djzapz wrote: Read the name. It's the United-States. That's a body. You're suggesting the standards of living spawned there out of thin air for the couple hundreds years you've been there? That's ridiculous. I'll state the obvious here. Your country's success is largely based on its governing body which made it quickly rise to be the most powerful country in the world. Your money represents a country. Not a bunch of people, not a landmass, but a body which is governed by a president which has taxed its people for a long, long time. It started well before the US was powerful, too. That's a nice point of view, but it is far from fact that it's the government that erected buildings, developed commercial technologies, saved and invested efficiently, built capital, made the grass grow... well, the last one I admit, the government may have done it.  You can say the government "enabled" it all but... to point to it as the main benefactor... is very much debatable. On July 06 2010 13:08 Djzapz wrote: People don't know. And people obviously want others to pay for it. Everybody knows that. If a person makes $50,000 a year and some project requires 20 billions to be completed, $5000 is nothing, even $50,000 is nothing. It's foolish to expect people would chip in NEARLY enough. But I guess anarchists can distort human nature so it fits. Then how does a capitalist today does it? Why does an entrepreneur saves or loans millions from a bunch of investors to make something so big that a single middle-class person can't understand? Thing is, it's possible, and it's much more efficient than the government because every cent is accounted for. The investors have everything to lose; government can just tax more or print more... easy come, easy go, yeah? ...or are you saying there hasn't been billion-dollar projects in the private world so far? Sorry if I sounded obnoxious at any point, it was not intended as an offense. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:35 kzn wrote: He had to raise them because Congress wouldn't get off his nuts and lower spending. Yeah, certainly not because lowering them too much was an obvious mistake which could have been worse but luckily it got prevented. Got a few PMs that say you're as conservative as it gets... I see that now. | ||
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Sabu113
United States11035 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:10 Ciryandor wrote: Ugh, why are we having an economic debate in a political thread, guys? How does this connect with the issue of certain demographics' representation on the Net? @ Tax cuts vs Spending It's a philosophical issue of what role government should play, whether to direct it with its hand on things; or let those it represents do the deciding for them. There are real policy implications for choosing to use one or the other. "Sourced? I don't need sources when I have a working brain." Personal anecdotal logic does not trump the findings of a entire field of + Show Spoiler + social (T_T) Public goods are goods that are non-rivalous and non-excludable. Clean air is a common example of a public good. A justice system is typically thought of as a Public good. Preventing the financial system from crashing is a public good. Another item of interest to consider when talking about an ararcho-capitalist system is how you deal with the Tragedy of the commons. I.e. Fishing rights. @ SEC Now this is pretty interesting. It's going to take me awhile to address all of your points. I was going to say that a Financial market regulation is a public good and in most cases public goods can only be fulfilled by the State; however, up until the Great Depression all of these stock exchanges were completely private. There were some issues as it took quite a bit of effort to get into the NYSE and some possibly more deserving stocks were forced to the curve, but the board regulated itself for about 100 years with reasonable success... Well hmn. There were some shenanigans going on, but foreigners were still really eager to throw their money at speculative ventures. Mnnn. I'll address what you quoted in a bit will edit this later. This is quite fun. :D I'm trying to decide whether or not the Fed is an example the success of the private sector in creating necessary systems or rather a malignant growth as a result of the two-tier banking system. @ Flub. I believe Bush had a phrase for it. "Voo-doo" economics. Keynes' theory cares about the shift in aggregate demand, not how some financial market is doing. You assume the wealthy are less risk-averse than most of us and that they will actually use their money to invest in stocks rather than US-treasuries. That's quite an assumption. Edit: We need more Hobbes in this thread. | ||
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kzn
United States1218 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:37 Djzapz wrote:Got a few PMs that say you're as conservative as it gets... I see that now. And? I can argue every opinion I hold to, at the very least, a deadlock, if not a clear conclusion in my favor. Gonna need more than ad hominem. | ||
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Tyraz
New Zealand310 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:39 Sabu113 wrote: Edit: We need more Hobbes in this thread. Provided: ![[image loading]](http://nefmq09.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/3141139302_45d5b3b0a6_o1.jpg) | ||
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:23 Djzapz wrote: If you make a road, you have to have people fund it. Who funds it, who's allowed to use it? Who takes the money? Who collects it? If I haven't paid for it and I want to use it, who do I pay? Can I? Tolls, ads, local residents and businesses, something I haven't thought of but a clever entrepreneur may, can pay for it. also read this, I haven't read it tbh so idk what it says though lol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good#Possible_solutions On July 06 2010 13:23 Djzapz wrote: How does an entrepreneur benefit from having a road? If you need to pay to use it, isn't that shitty? People already pay now... On July 06 2010 13:23 Djzapz wrote: Why wouldn't he gouge you since you need to use it? Why wouldn't the government gounge you? Oh wait, they already do  Short answer, competition. There's hardly any competition when the government has a legal monopoly on it... On July 06 2010 13:23 Djzapz wrote: What happens if people get angry? Then they can take it to court. And if you ask me why they wouldn't fight it out well, short answer is that it would hurt everyone more. Both parties would make sure their retaliation and security was up to par to any risks of violence. Something that doesn't happen in today's world of course, unless you're really rich when you can afford paying both the public (useless) and private security. On July 06 2010 13:23 Djzapz wrote: Who chooses who negociates conflicts? Bias? There would be a lot of abuse. Who makes sure there's not abuse? How are those people not going to abuse it? People themselves make sure there's no abuse by hiring third-party arbiters as-needed. And the arbiters themselves have a direct incentive to solve conflicts just like any private lawyer of today does too. The difference being, without people being forced to pay for the public courts, they'd have more to spare for a decent private court. Courts would also be in competition.. etc... Not getting any longer than that sry. On July 06 2010 13:23 Djzapz wrote: This ends up in this russian dolls situation. It would be extremely complicated on so many levels and the way to fix it is usually through some kind of power which could easily end up trying to become a tyrant or at least some kind of leader. Things would turn wrong. Who makes the decision that your anarchy would work in a certain way so it doesn't go wrong? How would you alter human nature. It is extremely complicated, and cutting it short saying "welp, we just have to give guns to these people and let them handle it" is far from being the most efficient way to solve it. You don't have to alter human nature, human beings are social creatures from the get-go. Conflicts have always been better resolved peacefully. No one likes to get hurt. Unless you're a masochist psychopath, in which case you're going to get retaliated to death sometime. On July 06 2010 13:23 Djzapz wrote: So many questions you can't understand without "cheating" I'm using cliffnotes on anarchism yo I did in school too, but on statism. Ace'd every subject. | ||
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jalstar
United States8198 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:36 Yurebis wrote: fucking wall of text I read all of this, and what you're saying, I believe, is that the government lowers the quality of everything it touches. That's 100% true. Yet the government also increases access to basic goods and services. The reason government-run things suck isn't because they're run by the government (that's a tautology) but because they're available to everyone. Society sometimes decides that it's better to give everyone some crappy stuff than to let the market give a few people good stuff and the rest no stuff. | ||
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Sabu113
United States11035 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:23 kzn wrote: You know what happened to tax receipts when Reagan cut taxes from 90% to 38%, or whatever it was? Nothing. Nothing happened. Tax receipts barely blipped for a year. Left-wing economists don't take the Laffer Curve seriously because they think where it was drawn means something. It is demonstrably and necessarily true that if tax receipts are 0 at 0% taxation and 0 at 100% taxation (which they are), there is a point where lowering your tax rates will generate more revenue. This is all that is actually claimed by the Laffer Curve. This is not a LEFT WING thing. This is a matter of whether or not this is a legitimate piece of economic research. It is not. T_T To the best of my knowledge, no one has been able to perform econometric work that demonstrates its existence. Also you must address the 90% marginal tax rate during the 60s (hell you can go back another decade if you would like). You're fun and you raise good points and I apologize for being rude at times, but we have some serious factual disagreements about Theory. | ||
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cucumber
United States116 Posts
You are dealing with the dumbest people you could possibly imagine. It's not that they can't understand how to think critically, it's that they have given up the exercise entirely. These are a bunch of people who will relentlessly cite John Maynard Keynes for his ideas without actually having read him and realizing that he didn't actually agree with their stupid thoughts (see ,e.g., regulation). These are also a bunch of people who often will argue with you if you suggest that the earth is more than 6000 years old. Fossils, apparently, were put there by Satan. The American "conservative" experience has been so intellectually debased that it's going to take a long time to repair. And it's kind of sad. Because conservatives in the US, were more of them sane and/or not total intellectual morons, would have something interesting to say. The sane American conservatives are forced out. Unfortunately. User was warned for this post | ||
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jalstar
United States8198 Posts
Please provide real-world examples. | ||
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jalstar
United States8198 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:55 cucumber wrote: These are a bunch of people who will relentlessly cite John Maynard Keynes for his ideas without actually having read him and realizing that he didn't actually agree with their stupid thoughts (see ,e.g., regulation). These are also a bunch of people who often will argue with you if you suggest that the earth is more than 6000 years old. Fossils, apparently, were put there by Satan. The American "conservative" experience has been so intellectually debased that it's going to take a long time to repair. And it's kind of sad. Because conservatives in the US, were more of them sane and/or not total intellectual morons, would have something interesting to say. The sane American conservatives are forced out. Unfortunately. Conservatives hate Keynes and internet conservatives are very unlikely to believe in creationism. | ||
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L
Canada4732 Posts
On July 06 2010 13:36 jalstar wrote: You can use basic math to prove that the laffer curve exists in theory, but there's no evidence of it showing up in a real-world application. 1. Revenue as a % of GDP is too low for a peak to show up. 2. Too many other variables are involved. Uh, just a heads up, but you typically do not pick a single outlier as the only accurately followed point on your curve and leave the majority of the data completely unrepresented by the model. | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
You mean the building of roads is something so impossible to do in private hands that we just need someone to force people to build them? The network certainly wouldn't be nearly as impressive but I'm sure some roads would get done. What's so different in a million-dollar highway to a million-dollar building? The building affects a company's income significantly more directly than the road that leads to that building. Do I make huge assumptions to say that the same money (or less) you give to the government could be given to a road-building agency through voluntary means? The agency would have a direct incentive through tolls and other voluntary means of collection, and would be in competition to other agencies... What's so different about roads that makes the usual market competition impossible? Simple. If I have a small amount and I can either fund a small project (buying food) vs a big project which won't directly pay me back, I'll chose the smaller project, as would most people. This would slow things down considerably. I have no clue how you would argue otherwise. Oh so you mean we could tax all their money, or even none of their money, and the prices of stuff wouldn't change, because they'd take that hike/cut like men, and not do anything to preserve nor out-compete other entrepreneurs out of self-interest? If you lower the rich's taxes, they won't feel that they don't deserve the extra earnings. They won't equalize it by lowering their prices. If object A makes the most profit @ 1.99, they won't make it 1.90 just to be nice. You mean the government built the apartments, the businesses, the colleges...? Lots of them yes... Definitely. I'm against any tax by principle. Even if you say it's necessary, I'll shout out "necessary for what?" Name one good country with no taxes. GG What are your ends that are so important to men yet so voluntarily unreachable that justifies coercion? No coercion involved ever. If you don't like it you can go away, that's always an option. They will NEVER keep you from leaving ever. If technology today was at the point where we could transfer our minds into other bodies, does that mean that rape would be justifiable in that you could switch to another body for a certain sum of money? That analogy is a non-sequitur. A huge one. Well if you read into praxeology, the premises are actually quite agreeable, and I think you'd agree that man would most often act on it's best interest. People agree with untrue things all the time. It just turns out that peace *is* in man's best interest. Violence is costly, especially in today's technologically enabled world where security and retaliation are so much more efficient in stopping it. That would mean something if people behaved in their best interest. I would like to suggest that you aren't. If there was a big red button for your kind of anarchy and pushing it made it happen, I'm sure you'd push it and nothing would happen as you would expect. Then how does a capitalist today does it? Why does an entrepreneur saves or loans millions from a bunch of investors to make something so big that a single middle-class person can't understand? Personal profit. ...or are you saying there hasn't been billion-dollar projects in the private world so far Nothing that won't directly benefit the entrepreneur. Or very little. Can't expect that to happen on a large scale. | ||
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Sabu113
United States11035 Posts
Ironic that in the article on solutions they mention Stephen king's experiment.... they fail to mention that it failed lol. | ||
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