by wj
As I noted in a comment earlier, one of my political goals would be
1) equality of opportunity,
2) NOT equality of outcomes,
3) adequate support for those who are struggling, funded by money from those who have been most successful.
But how do we get there? I think that first we have to accept the concept of Enough.
When you have income, what do you spend it on? First, you need food on the table, a roof over your head, and clothes on your back. Once you have funded that, you start on other necessities: e.g. transportation, information, etc. (We can have another discussion about what is and is not a necessity.) And you put money aside, both to deal with emergencies and to fund a tolerable retirement. Also, you start to provide some luxuries to make life more comfortable.
At some point, you’ve got all the necessities covered. And as for luxuries, you are essentially spending as much as you can on luxuries that you have time to actually use. At that point, you have Enough. There is no economic reason* to make more – we’ve already stipulated that you can’t usefully spend any more. So why do so?
I suggest that the only reason to make more is to demonstrate how wonderful/accomplished/important you are to folks who have no clue about the actual, objective, value of what you do. To put it bluntly, incomes beyond that point are nothing but a dick measuring contest. (Of course, some people may consider that to be necessary to their self-image. Tough.)
At that point, there’s no reason not to put the marginal tax rates at close to 100%. You may have a philosophical objection to the idea, but you don’t have a personal economic cause to complain. And that provides funding for a safety net for those who are still struggling with the basic necessities.
* Stipulate that there will be those who end up making more as a side effect of doing the things that they love doing. I would say that Warren Buffet appears to fall into that category. He’s not making ever more money for the sake of the money/status, witness the fact that he isn’t frittering it away on flashy luxuries.
So, marginal tax rate of ~90% at anything over $10 million/year, including marking to market financial and real estate assets?
So, marginal tax rate of ~90% at anything over $10 million/year, including marking to market financial and real estate assets?
Or maybe $1 million/year, also cap gains taxed at ordinary income rates and get rid of the new pass-through deduction.
Or maybe $1 million/year, also cap gains taxed at ordinary income rates and get rid of the new pass-through deduction.
Ugh, yeah pretty much.
But I’m mostly focused on the general concept. The details (e.g. the thresholds) are open to discussion.
Ugh, yeah pretty much.
But I’m mostly focused on the general concept. The details (e.g. the thresholds) are open to discussion.
That’s what you get when you have a tax lawyer as one of your co-front pagers wj!
That’s what you get when you have a tax lawyer as one of your co-front pagers wj!
Perhaps whatever income thresholds for whatever tax rates should be determined based on per-capita GDP.
Perhaps whatever income thresholds for whatever tax rates should be determined based on per-capita GDP.
I.e., diminishing marginal utility of income, which has always seemed like a fairly incontrovertible fact to me. Possibly to everyone — which I suspect is why the Right tries to frame opposition to progressive taxation in terms of “[cuckoo] freedom” or “simplicity” or “economic efficiency”, etc.
The footnote puts me in mind of running it like a business — the fetishization of money and profit over everything else, including actual value, which has been bringing about the great hollowing out and gradual failure of not only public institutions like government, infrastructure and universities, but also, increasingly, businesses themselves.
I don’t think it’d be too hard to make the point that high incomes — whose purpose can only be accumulation for its own sake — is not only excessive, but indeed a negative, inasmuch as it’s sort of culturally displacing activity which is done for other reasons – like doing a job well, producing a quality product, etc.
(See also: medicine, where anecdotal evidence suggests that a lot of surgical oncologists and whatnot are maybe in the profession for what one might call the wrong reasons. Millions of wrong reasons.)
I.e., diminishing marginal utility of income, which has always seemed like a fairly incontrovertible fact to me. Possibly to everyone — which I suspect is why the Right tries to frame opposition to progressive taxation in terms of “[cuckoo] freedom” or “simplicity” or “economic efficiency”, etc.
The footnote puts me in mind of running it like a business — the fetishization of money and profit over everything else, including actual value, which has been bringing about the great hollowing out and gradual failure of not only public institutions like government, infrastructure and universities, but also, increasingly, businesses themselves.
I don’t think it’d be too hard to make the point that high incomes — whose purpose can only be accumulation for its own sake — is not only excessive, but indeed a negative, inasmuch as it’s sort of culturally displacing activity which is done for other reasons – like doing a job well, producing a quality product, etc.
(See also: medicine, where anecdotal evidence suggests that a lot of surgical oncologists and whatnot are maybe in the profession for what one might call the wrong reasons. Millions of wrong reasons.)
What Jack said.
What Jack said.
See also: medicine, where anecdotal evidence suggests that a lot of surgical oncologists and whatnot are maybe in the profession for what one might call the wrong reasons.
So if there isn’t the option to make ridiculous amounts in that field, maybe we’d get more people in medicine who are actually interested in medicine? Sounds like a serious win.
See also: medicine, where anecdotal evidence suggests that a lot of surgical oncologists and whatnot are maybe in the profession for what one might call the wrong reasons.
So if there isn’t the option to make ridiculous amounts in that field, maybe we’d get more people in medicine who are actually interested in medicine? Sounds like a serious win.
One of the common arguments against high tax rates is that they reduce the incentive for people to seek additional income, which seems to imply that the seeking of said additional income is desirable for society at large. Once that income is above a certain level, I don’t know that it holds true.
If we’re talking about a progressive tax system with marginal rates that increase with income, what sort of economic activity are we talking about at the highest levels? If it’s truly productive, in the sense of creating real value (see jack lecou above), why not let someone else whose income isn’t already as high create that value and seek that additional income?
If it’s not truly productive, who gives a sh*t if anyone at all does it?
One of the common arguments against high tax rates is that they reduce the incentive for people to seek additional income, which seems to imply that the seeking of said additional income is desirable for society at large. Once that income is above a certain level, I don’t know that it holds true.
If we’re talking about a progressive tax system with marginal rates that increase with income, what sort of economic activity are we talking about at the highest levels? If it’s truly productive, in the sense of creating real value (see jack lecou above), why not let someone else whose income isn’t already as high create that value and seek that additional income?
If it’s not truly productive, who gives a sh*t if anyone at all does it?
So if there isn’t the option to make ridiculous amounts in that field, maybe we’d get more people in medicine who are actually interested in medicine? Sounds like a serious win.
Indeed.
It also works in sort of the reverse direction for the financial industry. How many quant nerds with math and physics degrees are there just because it’s the fastest way to pay off their student loans, rather then their actual life passion.
Isn’t it likely to be more beneficial to society, in both the short and long term, if they were employed in figuring out protein folding or Navier-Stokes or something rather than the best way to make money off of derived derivative derivations?
So if there isn’t the option to make ridiculous amounts in that field, maybe we’d get more people in medicine who are actually interested in medicine? Sounds like a serious win.
Indeed.
It also works in sort of the reverse direction for the financial industry. How many quant nerds with math and physics degrees are there just because it’s the fastest way to pay off their student loans, rather then their actual life passion.
Isn’t it likely to be more beneficial to society, in both the short and long term, if they were employed in figuring out protein folding or Navier-Stokes or something rather than the best way to make money off of derived derivative derivations?
That’s what I love about this blog: I could actually encounter someone who has even heard of the Navier-Stokes equation! Thank you.
That’s what I love about this blog: I could actually encounter someone who has even heard of the Navier-Stokes equation! Thank you.
Three quotes from works of literature from an essay by Martin Amis on John Updike:
“to surrender the burden of his body utterly, but instead found himself obliged to carry it through it series of fresh efforts — forms to be filled out, proofs to be supplied of HIS FINANCIAL FITNESS TO BE ILL …”
…. from Updike’s short story, “The City” wherein the prot(agonist) checks himself into an emergency room for stomach pains (which turns out to be appendicitis).
Later, after surgery:
“There materialized a host of specialists in one department of Carson’s anatomy or another, so that he felt huge, like Gulliver pegged down in Lilliput for inspection. All of them paid their calls so casually and pleasantly — just dropping by, as it were — that Carson was amazed, months later, to find each visit listed by date and hour on the sheets of hospital services billed to him in extensive dot-matrix printout — an old Centronics 739 printer, from the look of it.”
from “Lolita”, by Nabokov:
“As in any American hospital, every tear-stained pillowslip, every scrap of soiled paper tissue, has eventually to be answered for.”
My apartment rent in Denver just took its percentage biggest jump in years, after rising every year for the past nine.
I asked why such a big rise this year, partly tongue-in-cheek, because I knew at some point someone would explain patiently to me that “it’s the market, you know, supply and demand”, (followed by a shrug) like folks in primitive times waving away reality’s events by noting the alignment of the stars or the random arrangement of the viscera of chickens after slaughter.
Sho enough.
Here’s the thing, many, many hundreds of fairly high-rise apartment units have been constructed across the street during the past year, so supply is flooding the market, but yeah, folks are moving to Denver in droves.
Still.
Rental units are going up willy-nilly, but they aren’t marketed to mid-to-lower income residents, but rather up-market, and no pigfucking government any longer wants to subsidize housing for mid-to-lower income residents shut out of the housing market.
Like night follows day, the reasonably-priced units in town then raise their rents to compete for higher prices, not lower prices, not unlike the market for medical care.
Supply-side fuckyounomics.
America makes up shit as it goes along and then mouths the word “markets” to justify fucking everyone below a certain socio-economic level.
I have the freedom to move out of Denver, don’t I realize?
You mean, I have the freedom to be forced to move?
That’s what passes for rational in totally rationalized America … every aspirin, every bullet, every square inch a profit center.
What a bunch of fucks we’ve become.
Yeah, Costa Rica looks pretty good, but fortunately, unlike many, I can afford for the time being to tell the market that wants me to move to go fuck itself.
Maybe I’ll join the Incel cult devoted to parsing out shelter more fairly, while conservatives spend their time rationalizing the sexual marketplace.
Three quotes from works of literature from an essay by Martin Amis on John Updike:
“to surrender the burden of his body utterly, but instead found himself obliged to carry it through it series of fresh efforts — forms to be filled out, proofs to be supplied of HIS FINANCIAL FITNESS TO BE ILL …”
…. from Updike’s short story, “The City” wherein the prot(agonist) checks himself into an emergency room for stomach pains (which turns out to be appendicitis).
Later, after surgery:
“There materialized a host of specialists in one department of Carson’s anatomy or another, so that he felt huge, like Gulliver pegged down in Lilliput for inspection. All of them paid their calls so casually and pleasantly — just dropping by, as it were — that Carson was amazed, months later, to find each visit listed by date and hour on the sheets of hospital services billed to him in extensive dot-matrix printout — an old Centronics 739 printer, from the look of it.”
from “Lolita”, by Nabokov:
“As in any American hospital, every tear-stained pillowslip, every scrap of soiled paper tissue, has eventually to be answered for.”
My apartment rent in Denver just took its percentage biggest jump in years, after rising every year for the past nine.
I asked why such a big rise this year, partly tongue-in-cheek, because I knew at some point someone would explain patiently to me that “it’s the market, you know, supply and demand”, (followed by a shrug) like folks in primitive times waving away reality’s events by noting the alignment of the stars or the random arrangement of the viscera of chickens after slaughter.
Sho enough.
Here’s the thing, many, many hundreds of fairly high-rise apartment units have been constructed across the street during the past year, so supply is flooding the market, but yeah, folks are moving to Denver in droves.
Still.
Rental units are going up willy-nilly, but they aren’t marketed to mid-to-lower income residents, but rather up-market, and no pigfucking government any longer wants to subsidize housing for mid-to-lower income residents shut out of the housing market.
Like night follows day, the reasonably-priced units in town then raise their rents to compete for higher prices, not lower prices, not unlike the market for medical care.
Supply-side fuckyounomics.
America makes up shit as it goes along and then mouths the word “markets” to justify fucking everyone below a certain socio-economic level.
I have the freedom to move out of Denver, don’t I realize?
You mean, I have the freedom to be forced to move?
That’s what passes for rational in totally rationalized America … every aspirin, every bullet, every square inch a profit center.
What a bunch of fucks we’ve become.
Yeah, Costa Rica looks pretty good, but fortunately, unlike many, I can afford for the time being to tell the market that wants me to move to go fuck itself.
Maybe I’ll join the Incel cult devoted to parsing out shelter more fairly, while conservatives spend their time rationalizing the sexual marketplace.
So if there isn’t the option to make ridiculous amounts in that field, maybe we’d get more people in medicine who are actually interested in medicine? Sounds like a serious win.
Or more people who are actually interested in something besides medicine.
So if there isn’t the option to make ridiculous amounts in that field, maybe we’d get more people in medicine who are actually interested in medicine? Sounds like a serious win.
Or more people who are actually interested in something besides medicine.
“Or more people who are actually interested in something besides medicine.”
Teaching school, perhaps, and having their summer vacations maligned?
Inside every oncologist, there is a boardwalk water colorist trying to get out.
“Or more people who are actually interested in something besides medicine.”
Teaching school, perhaps, and having their summer vacations maligned?
Inside every oncologist, there is a boardwalk water colorist trying to get out.
https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/3/21/17101260/trump-labor-department-tip-rule
Restaurant workers everywhere were ready to quit their jobs and either hit the beach or become oncologists.
https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/3/21/17101260/trump-labor-department-tip-rule
Restaurant workers everywhere were ready to quit their jobs and either hit the beach or become oncologists.
It used to be that doctors would say “Whaddaya think, I’m in this for my health?”
Now patients day it.
It used to be that doctors would say “Whaddaya think, I’m in this for my health?”
Now patients day it.
say
They were patients undergoing surgery to correct speech impediments.
say
They were patients undergoing surgery to correct speech impediments.
Teaching school, perhaps, and having their summer vacations maligned?
It’s not like careers are not fungible. Otherwise, the number of women in STEM wouldn’t have declined when other career opportunities became more readily available in western countries.
Teaching school, perhaps, and having their summer vacations maligned?
It’s not like careers are not fungible. Otherwise, the number of women in STEM wouldn’t have declined when other career opportunities became more readily available in western countries.
…, the number of women in STEM…
Perhaps “, the percentage of women in STEM” would be more accurate.
…, the number of women in STEM…
Perhaps “, the percentage of women in STEM” would be more accurate.
“fungible”?
I don’t think that’s quite the word. Too much difference in skills required. There are choices, alternatives. But not unlimited, interchangeable ones.
Still a career certainly shouldn’t be a life-long straitjacket either. And clinging to the illusion that, once embraced, a career ought to last forever is pretty much a guarantee of disappointment in today’s economy.
One (of many) challenges for those who would reduce poverty and inequality is to help people see what alternatives they might have. Which would be not only acceptable but enjoyable. And then show them how to acquire the skills needed to grasp the opportunity.
“fungible”?
I don’t think that’s quite the word. Too much difference in skills required. There are choices, alternatives. But not unlimited, interchangeable ones.
Still a career certainly shouldn’t be a life-long straitjacket either. And clinging to the illusion that, once embraced, a career ought to last forever is pretty much a guarantee of disappointment in today’s economy.
One (of many) challenges for those who would reduce poverty and inequality is to help people see what alternatives they might have. Which would be not only acceptable but enjoyable. And then show them how to acquire the skills needed to grasp the opportunity.
That’s what I love about this blog: I could actually encounter someone who has even heard of the Navier-Stokes equation! Thank you.
My choice of professor for one of my chemistry (oral) finals was influenced by the goal of avoiding those that expected the examinees to know all of them by heart in spherical coordinates. Viscosimetry in cylindrical coordinates for non-Newtonian fluids was bad enough (and I got lucky enough to be left off with the basic principles on that. I would have totally failed deriving the equations).
That’s what I love about this blog: I could actually encounter someone who has even heard of the Navier-Stokes equation! Thank you.
My choice of professor for one of my chemistry (oral) finals was influenced by the goal of avoiding those that expected the examinees to know all of them by heart in spherical coordinates. Viscosimetry in cylindrical coordinates for non-Newtonian fluids was bad enough (and I got lucky enough to be left off with the basic principles on that. I would have totally failed deriving the equations).
Thanks to both wj and jack lecou. Great, thought-provoking stuff. “Enough” is a great concept, and unfortunately one that our current zeitgeist never seems to have encountered.
wj’s post reminds me that I sometimes think of money as being like water (n.b. I am not an economist ;-). That is, there are oceans and lakes and rivers and streams of it, and we — and all living beings — need it for life.
I would like to think of wj’s plan not so much in terms of high marginal tax rates, but in terms of the community at large saying: no one is allowed to wall off so much water for themselves that other people are deprived of a life-sustaining supply.
If we could collectively agree on some “enough” that would let people live in comfort and dignity, even the least capable of us, then we could let the dick-measurers have their stupid contest among themselves with what’s left over.
If it’s not truly productive, who gives a sh*t if anyone at all does it?
No NBA, no rock stars… I don’t know if LeBron would still play basketball for our entertainment, but I bet great books would still get written.
Thanks to both wj and jack lecou. Great, thought-provoking stuff. “Enough” is a great concept, and unfortunately one that our current zeitgeist never seems to have encountered.
wj’s post reminds me that I sometimes think of money as being like water (n.b. I am not an economist ;-). That is, there are oceans and lakes and rivers and streams of it, and we — and all living beings — need it for life.
I would like to think of wj’s plan not so much in terms of high marginal tax rates, but in terms of the community at large saying: no one is allowed to wall off so much water for themselves that other people are deprived of a life-sustaining supply.
If we could collectively agree on some “enough” that would let people live in comfort and dignity, even the least capable of us, then we could let the dick-measurers have their stupid contest among themselves with what’s left over.
If it’s not truly productive, who gives a sh*t if anyone at all does it?
No NBA, no rock stars… I don’t know if LeBron would still play basketball for our entertainment, but I bet great books would still get written.
Andrew Sullivan in his slimy way used to say that higher tax rates would “punish the successful.” (I stopped paying attention to Andrew a long time ago; for all I know he’s still saying it.)
I always wanted to ask: successful at what? As wj’s framing suggests, there’s a point after which the accumulation of more and ever more money is a matter of being successful at … accumulating more and ever more money. It isn’t “punishment” to say you don’t get to concentrate vast, outsized proportions of the world’s wealth in your hands. The world was here before you, it will still be here after you’re gone, and it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to all of us.
Andrew Sullivan in his slimy way used to say that higher tax rates would “punish the successful.” (I stopped paying attention to Andrew a long time ago; for all I know he’s still saying it.)
I always wanted to ask: successful at what? As wj’s framing suggests, there’s a point after which the accumulation of more and ever more money is a matter of being successful at … accumulating more and ever more money. It isn’t “punishment” to say you don’t get to concentrate vast, outsized proportions of the world’s wealth in your hands. The world was here before you, it will still be here after you’re gone, and it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to all of us.
I don’t know if LeBron would still play basketball for our entertainment
I would bet that most of the NBA (don’t know about LeBron specifically) would be fine with playing for a merely high (net) salary. They’re happy to be well paid, but they are there in significant part because they love what they do. (Otherwise they would retire as soon as they had socked away enough to never have to work again.)
I don’t know if LeBron would still play basketball for our entertainment
I would bet that most of the NBA (don’t know about LeBron specifically) would be fine with playing for a merely high (net) salary. They’re happy to be well paid, but they are there in significant part because they love what they do. (Otherwise they would retire as soon as they had socked away enough to never have to work again.)
wj, you’re probably right. I remember an anecdote in Sports Illustrated many years ago in which an NBA star who had been heavily recruited said something to the effect of: They don’t seem to realize that I’d play this game for nothing.
Not that he was complaining.
wj, you’re probably right. I remember an anecdote in Sports Illustrated many years ago in which an NBA star who had been heavily recruited said something to the effect of: They don’t seem to realize that I’d play this game for nothing.
Not that he was complaining.
I’ve been PAYING to play baseball since I was a kid.
There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I’m pretty good in my small world.
Professional athletes were paid chickenfeed, with the exception of a few superstars, for decades.
Most worked second jobs, like teachers.
After Curt Flood and collective bargaining, sports franchise owners claimed it was the end of the world, how’s a guy spose to make a living if we have to pay labor what they deserve.
Now the Yankees are worth half a billion dollars. Cities pay teams to stay in town.
The baseball minor leagues are full of guys who are paid next to nothing, but they stick to it for years, even after the possibility of a call up to the Show is out of the question.
Artists, musicians, hundreds of thousands of them toil away for decades without shaking the money tree.
Maybe money ain’t what drives them.
Poets? Jesus H. Christ!
Most of them have to teach, maybe at the university level and be called elitists by conservative cocksuckers and worse, they might receive a government grant and be called even worse by cocksuckers the same.
New York and LA are full of actors working as servers and clerks for nothing.
Hell, two low-paid, not very successful actors had to act in a commercial in the 1990s denigrating their opportunity to receive medical care under HillaryCare, because some conservative assholes paid them a little bit of money to do so.
They were interviewed later and said they could have used medical insurance given the part-time nature of all of their jobs.
Ya think many oncologists would give a shit one way or another if those two actors showed up in a hospital emergency room with a tumor the size of Wyoming and no insurance?
If I give them subsidized care, says the oncologist, then I have to give others subsidized care. Where does it stop?
I might as well become a poet, the oncologists would protest.
America is a wondrous place.
Any kind of bullshit will fly to keep the money in the hands of them that has it.
I’ve been PAYING to play baseball since I was a kid.
There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I’m pretty good in my small world.
Professional athletes were paid chickenfeed, with the exception of a few superstars, for decades.
Most worked second jobs, like teachers.
After Curt Flood and collective bargaining, sports franchise owners claimed it was the end of the world, how’s a guy spose to make a living if we have to pay labor what they deserve.
Now the Yankees are worth half a billion dollars. Cities pay teams to stay in town.
The baseball minor leagues are full of guys who are paid next to nothing, but they stick to it for years, even after the possibility of a call up to the Show is out of the question.
Artists, musicians, hundreds of thousands of them toil away for decades without shaking the money tree.
Maybe money ain’t what drives them.
Poets? Jesus H. Christ!
Most of them have to teach, maybe at the university level and be called elitists by conservative cocksuckers and worse, they might receive a government grant and be called even worse by cocksuckers the same.
New York and LA are full of actors working as servers and clerks for nothing.
Hell, two low-paid, not very successful actors had to act in a commercial in the 1990s denigrating their opportunity to receive medical care under HillaryCare, because some conservative assholes paid them a little bit of money to do so.
They were interviewed later and said they could have used medical insurance given the part-time nature of all of their jobs.
Ya think many oncologists would give a shit one way or another if those two actors showed up in a hospital emergency room with a tumor the size of Wyoming and no insurance?
If I give them subsidized care, says the oncologist, then I have to give others subsidized care. Where does it stop?
I might as well become a poet, the oncologists would protest.
America is a wondrous place.
Any kind of bullshit will fly to keep the money in the hands of them that has it.
Vincent Van Gogh wants to know when he gets his cut from his paintings that Hollywood plastic surgeons and hedge fund managers purchase at auction.
I expect he wonders why he ever put forth the effort on “Starry Night”.
I coulda been an oncologist, he raves to himself.
Vincent Van Gogh wants to know when he gets his cut from his paintings that Hollywood plastic surgeons and hedge fund managers purchase at auction.
I expect he wonders why he ever put forth the effort on “Starry Night”.
I coulda been an oncologist, he raves to himself.
wj’s post reminds me that I sometimes think of money as being like water (n.b. I am not an economist ;-). That is, there are oceans and lakes and rivers and streams of it, and we — and all living beings — need it for life.
An analogy that’s been playing in my head recently is that of the economy as a machine, like, say an airliner.
This touches on the ‘efficiency’ argument against higher progressive tax rates. Tax rich people too much and they won’t perform, they say. We must have hedge funds and bankers and gazillion-dollar CEO compensation packages in order to ‘grow the economy’. The more the better, if they’re rich and growing richer, they must be doing something right!
The problem is, these folks (and all of the others who let this sort of framing of the issue pass unchallenged) have lost all sight of what that growth is actually for.
It’s like this group has taken it in their heads that they need to make the aforementioned jet PLANE faster and more powerful and more ‘efficient’. The trouble is, the point of a passenger jet is passengers, which they ditched, along with the seats, at least a dozen streamlining and weight reduction cycles ago.
That’s our economy. An ostensibly ultra powerful passenger jet that left all us actual paying passengers back at the terminal sometime in the 1970s, and has been doing nothing but carting around a couple of airline executives with ever increasing comfort and rapidity ever since.
But heaven forbid we do anything about that little problem. It would “cost too much” and/or “discourage performance”…
wj’s post reminds me that I sometimes think of money as being like water (n.b. I am not an economist ;-). That is, there are oceans and lakes and rivers and streams of it, and we — and all living beings — need it for life.
An analogy that’s been playing in my head recently is that of the economy as a machine, like, say an airliner.
This touches on the ‘efficiency’ argument against higher progressive tax rates. Tax rich people too much and they won’t perform, they say. We must have hedge funds and bankers and gazillion-dollar CEO compensation packages in order to ‘grow the economy’. The more the better, if they’re rich and growing richer, they must be doing something right!
The problem is, these folks (and all of the others who let this sort of framing of the issue pass unchallenged) have lost all sight of what that growth is actually for.
It’s like this group has taken it in their heads that they need to make the aforementioned jet PLANE faster and more powerful and more ‘efficient’. The trouble is, the point of a passenger jet is passengers, which they ditched, along with the seats, at least a dozen streamlining and weight reduction cycles ago.
That’s our economy. An ostensibly ultra powerful passenger jet that left all us actual paying passengers back at the terminal sometime in the 1970s, and has been doing nothing but carting around a couple of airline executives with ever increasing comfort and rapidity ever since.
But heaven forbid we do anything about that little problem. It would “cost too much” and/or “discourage performance”…
(Weird. PLANE should not be capitalized. Oh well. At least I didn’t have caps lock on for the whole thing. Don’t want to come across as an angry lunatic or anything.)
(Weird. PLANE should not be capitalized. Oh well. At least I didn’t have caps lock on for the whole thing. Don’t want to come across as an angry lunatic or anything.)
No NBA, no rock stars…
My thought process was more along the lines of (most) people not bothering to make more than some largish number of dollars per year because marginal tax rates would make it not worthwhile (to most people). Either way, sports and music are productive. They make people happy.
But I can imagine agents not fighting as hard for the heavily taxed dollars above whatever largish number. Still playing sports and music, just for somewhat less. (And those aren’t the kinds of things you can simply leave for someone else in a lower tax bracket to do. Most people kind of suck at them, relatively speaking at least.)
No NBA, no rock stars…
My thought process was more along the lines of (most) people not bothering to make more than some largish number of dollars per year because marginal tax rates would make it not worthwhile (to most people). Either way, sports and music are productive. They make people happy.
But I can imagine agents not fighting as hard for the heavily taxed dollars above whatever largish number. Still playing sports and music, just for somewhat less. (And those aren’t the kinds of things you can simply leave for someone else in a lower tax bracket to do. Most people kind of suck at them, relatively speaking at least.)
Either way, sports and music are productive. They make people happy.
No argument there.
Either way, sports and music are productive. They make people happy.
No argument there.
Most people kind of suck at them, relatively speaking at least.
Or there either. 😉
Most people kind of suck at them, relatively speaking at least.
Or there either. 😉
They make people happy.
As opposed to sports franchise owners, coddled by anti-trust exemptions (this is a public policy…look it up!) who are basically economic squatters, getting richer off of economic rents.
Our public policies dictate the actually experienced economy we observe, not some imagined ‘natural’ economic laws.
Thus endeth today’s lesson.
They make people happy.
As opposed to sports franchise owners, coddled by anti-trust exemptions (this is a public policy…look it up!) who are basically economic squatters, getting richer off of economic rents.
Our public policies dictate the actually experienced economy we observe, not some imagined ‘natural’ economic laws.
Thus endeth today’s lesson.
wj’s post reminds me that I sometimes think of money as being like water (n.b. I am not an economist ;-). That is, there are oceans and lakes and rivers and streams of it, and we — and all living beings — need it for life.
jm,
The government creates money out of thin air. Therefore, this creative process should be subject to democratic control.
’nuff said.
Thanks.
wj’s post reminds me that I sometimes think of money as being like water (n.b. I am not an economist ;-). That is, there are oceans and lakes and rivers and streams of it, and we — and all living beings — need it for life.
jm,
The government creates money out of thin air. Therefore, this creative process should be subject to democratic control.
’nuff said.
Thanks.
You can characterize what the government does as “creating money out of thin air.” But the implication that it can do so without limit (which I have seen asserted; not here, I hasten to add) is simply wrong. One need only look at the hyperinflation that has afflicted the countries which have tried it to see that.
I understand that this may not have been what Bobby was suggesting. But it’s a subject on which I get twitchy real fast.
You can characterize what the government does as “creating money out of thin air.” But the implication that it can do so without limit (which I have seen asserted; not here, I hasten to add) is simply wrong. One need only look at the hyperinflation that has afflicted the countries which have tried it to see that.
I understand that this may not have been what Bobby was suggesting. But it’s a subject on which I get twitchy real fast.
Two points:
1. Why this incessant addiction to talking about taxation of *income* instead of taxation of *wealth*…? It is surely accumulated wealth that allows people and corporations to corrupt democracy, not income. Yes, income adds up to wealth, but wealth persists. Tax income and not wealth, and the rich stay rich, and the poor can never be rich. Tax wealth!
2. What happens to all of this additional tax revenue…? Will the government use it to balance the books by, er, cutting taxes? Or will it be hoovered up by the military-industrial complex and “special interests”…?
Two points:
1. Why this incessant addiction to talking about taxation of *income* instead of taxation of *wealth*…? It is surely accumulated wealth that allows people and corporations to corrupt democracy, not income. Yes, income adds up to wealth, but wealth persists. Tax income and not wealth, and the rich stay rich, and the poor can never be rich. Tax wealth!
2. What happens to all of this additional tax revenue…? Will the government use it to balance the books by, er, cutting taxes? Or will it be hoovered up by the military-industrial complex and “special interests”…?
Never enough.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/05/zte-lives-thanks-donald/
Never enough.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/05/zte-lives-thanks-donald/
What happens to all of this additional tax revenue…?
Did you notice wj’s point #3?
3) adequate support for those who are struggling, funded by money from those who have been most successful.
It’s hardly likely that a society that had come so far as to design a system like the one wj is talking about would leave those loopholes gaping wide.
What happens to all of this additional tax revenue…?
Did you notice wj’s point #3?
3) adequate support for those who are struggling, funded by money from those who have been most successful.
It’s hardly likely that a society that had come so far as to design a system like the one wj is talking about would leave those loopholes gaping wide.
I’m one of those quant nerds someone mentioned. I did it because it was what I was best at. But being very well paid for it was gratifying.
My late wife was an oncologist. She did it to help the sick.
__
If you’re going to have highly progressive tax rates, there should be a rebate so that you end up paying based on average rather than peak income.
I’m one of those quant nerds someone mentioned. I did it because it was what I was best at. But being very well paid for it was gratifying.
My late wife was an oncologist. She did it to help the sick.
__
If you’re going to have highly progressive tax rates, there should be a rebate so that you end up paying based on average rather than peak income.
“(Weird. PLANE should not be capitalized. Oh well. At least I didn’t have caps lock on for the whole thing. Don’t want to come across as an angry lunatic or anything.)”
You can hire people to do that. 😉
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wh-aides-write-tweets-errors
“(Weird. PLANE should not be capitalized. Oh well. At least I didn’t have caps lock on for the whole thing. Don’t want to come across as an angry lunatic or anything.)”
You can hire people to do that. 😉
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wh-aides-write-tweets-errors
If you’re going to have highly progressive tax rates, there should be a rebate so that you end up paying based on average rather than peak income.
Why? You won’t pay the higher rate on income to which it doesn’t apply, even in your highest-earning years. If you are paying a very high rate at some point, it’s because you made a lot of f*cking money that year.
If you’re going to have highly progressive tax rates, there should be a rebate so that you end up paying based on average rather than peak income.
Why? You won’t pay the higher rate on income to which it doesn’t apply, even in your highest-earning years. If you are paying a very high rate at some point, it’s because you made a lot of f*cking money that year.
Why should I have a higher after-tax income over a ten-year period if I earn $1m a year for ten years than if I earn $2m a year for five years, then not much after that? For example if I’m a sportsman at the top of his game for a relatively brief period.
Why should I have a higher after-tax income over a ten-year period if I earn $1m a year for ten years than if I earn $2m a year for five years, then not much after that? For example if I’m a sportsman at the top of his game for a relatively brief period.
wj, not to step on your post, but Calvin Trillin discussed his late wife’s principle of ‘enoughness’ a number of times, something he termed the Alice Tax. Googling, I found this, where it’s discussed in section V of his remembrance of her.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/03/27/alice-off-the-page
wj, not to step on your post, but Calvin Trillin discussed his late wife’s principle of ‘enoughness’ a number of times, something he termed the Alice Tax. Googling, I found this, where it’s discussed in section V of his remembrance of her.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/03/27/alice-off-the-page
Why should I have a higher after-tax income over a ten-year period if I earn $1m a year for ten years than if I earn $2m a year for five years, then not much after that?
Because you, like everyone else, would get taxed on a annual basis. That’s how it works. If your income fluctuates, that might happen. It seems workable enough not to make it overly complicated by trying, in effect, to average out everyone’s income over however many years. (Maybe we should consider present value while we’re at it.)
Be happy you made $10M. If these are your worries, consider yourself lucky.
Why should I have a higher after-tax income over a ten-year period if I earn $1m a year for ten years than if I earn $2m a year for five years, then not much after that?
Because you, like everyone else, would get taxed on a annual basis. That’s how it works. If your income fluctuates, that might happen. It seems workable enough not to make it overly complicated by trying, in effect, to average out everyone’s income over however many years. (Maybe we should consider present value while we’re at it.)
Be happy you made $10M. If these are your worries, consider yourself lucky.
see also, the title of the post
see also, the title of the post
> Be happy you made $10M. If these are your worries, consider yourself lucky.
Yeah, that’s the answer. Sports stars are not entitled to retire after their “career” finishes, just like I’m not entitled to retire after my first career finishes either.
> Be happy you made $10M. If these are your worries, consider yourself lucky.
Yeah, that’s the answer. Sports stars are not entitled to retire after their “career” finishes, just like I’m not entitled to retire after my first career finishes either.
ok, but you’d find a lot of sports contracts structured to smooth out income.
ok, but you’d find a lot of sports contracts structured to smooth out income.
Why this incessant addiction to talking about taxation of *income* instead of taxation of *wealth*…?
I think at least part of the reason for taxing income rather than wealth is that taxing income provides government with an on-going income stream. Whereas taxing wealth would be a one-time thing.
Also, taxing wealth provides a huge incentive to stash said wealth somewhere else. Whereas taxing income means that you can tax it at the source.
Note, also, that taxing inheritances, while it can be seen as a tax on the heirs income, actually is a tax on wealth.
Why this incessant addiction to talking about taxation of *income* instead of taxation of *wealth*…?
I think at least part of the reason for taxing income rather than wealth is that taxing income provides government with an on-going income stream. Whereas taxing wealth would be a one-time thing.
Also, taxing wealth provides a huge incentive to stash said wealth somewhere else. Whereas taxing income means that you can tax it at the source.
Note, also, that taxing inheritances, while it can be seen as a tax on the heirs income, actually is a tax on wealth.
Why this incessant addiction to talking about taxation of *income* instead of taxation of *wealth*…?
I think at least part of the reason for taxing income rather than wealth is that taxing income provides government with an on-going income stream. Whereas taxing wealth would be a one-time thing.
Also, taxing wealth provides a huge incentive to stash said wealth somewhere else. Whereas taxing income means that you can tax it at the source.
Note, also, that taxing inheritances, while it can be seen as a tax on the heirs income, actually is a tax on wealth.
Why this incessant addiction to talking about taxation of *income* instead of taxation of *wealth*…?
I think at least part of the reason for taxing income rather than wealth is that taxing income provides government with an on-going income stream. Whereas taxing wealth would be a one-time thing.
Also, taxing wealth provides a huge incentive to stash said wealth somewhere else. Whereas taxing income means that you can tax it at the source.
Note, also, that taxing inheritances, while it can be seen as a tax on the heirs income, actually is a tax on wealth.
lj, thanks for the reference.
I’m pretty sure mine is a case of “independent invention.” Certainly I don’t claim exclusiveness. 😉
lj, thanks for the reference.
I’m pretty sure mine is a case of “independent invention.” Certainly I don’t claim exclusiveness. 😉
Pro Bono, of his late, beloved wife:
“She did it to help the sick.”
Precisely.
There is more to the human world than economic and tax incentives and disincentives, though American conservatives do their best to convince everyone those are the behavioral science straight jackets, even slightly applied, that form the basis of all human motivation.
When Ayn Rand hooked up with Medicare via her husband’s account, she went right on condemning gummint.
A poet doesn’t say, “When I write a poem that earns me my first million, that’s it, I’m outta here. You wouldn’t believe the tax burden.”
True, the poet might succumb to alcohol and other of the sybaritic pleasures, which might in turn give him/her a case of writer’s block, but such are the real pitfalls of success, money, and fame.
Pro Bono, of his late, beloved wife:
“She did it to help the sick.”
Precisely.
There is more to the human world than economic and tax incentives and disincentives, though American conservatives do their best to convince everyone those are the behavioral science straight jackets, even slightly applied, that form the basis of all human motivation.
When Ayn Rand hooked up with Medicare via her husband’s account, she went right on condemning gummint.
A poet doesn’t say, “When I write a poem that earns me my first million, that’s it, I’m outta here. You wouldn’t believe the tax burden.”
True, the poet might succumb to alcohol and other of the sybaritic pleasures, which might in turn give him/her a case of writer’s block, but such are the real pitfalls of success, money, and fame.
ok, but you’d find a lot of sports contracts structured to smooth out income.
I can live with that.
ok, but you’d find a lot of sports contracts structured to smooth out income.
I can live with that.
Whereas taxing wealth would be a one-time thing.
Not necessarily. My property taxes (on wealth I don’t even own entirely!) happen every year just as sure as the earth goes ’round the sun.
So – it depends.
Whereas taxing wealth would be a one-time thing.
Not necessarily. My property taxes (on wealth I don’t even own entirely!) happen every year just as sure as the earth goes ’round the sun.
So – it depends.
hey, remember when everybody buts its members agreed that the Stupid Party’s tax cuts weren’t going to do anything but increase corporate profits?
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/22/17350180/harley-davidson-tax-buyback-kansas-city-factory
hey, remember when everybody buts its members agreed that the Stupid Party’s tax cuts weren’t going to do anything but increase corporate profits?
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/22/17350180/harley-davidson-tax-buyback-kansas-city-factory
That’s why this happened:
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/wisconsin/articles/2018-05-10/no-media-being-allowed-at-harley-davidson-annual-meeting
That’s why this happened:
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/wisconsin/articles/2018-05-10/no-media-being-allowed-at-harley-davidson-annual-meeting
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/households-lose-out-on-hundreds-or-thousands-of-dollars-due-to-slow-pay-gains-2018-05-22?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
Being Americans, however, all of these folks are gratified to NOT receive wage increases, because it might kick them into higher tax brackets.
Corporate America is colluding with the filthy republican party by not increasing wages, so that revenue via the income tax to the government does NOT increase, thus bankrupting the government during the next economic downturn.
If their wages do rise, given prevailing conservative behavioral economic claptrap, expect tens of millions of Americans to quit their jobs wholesale and become front-porch whittlers and yarn-spinners, because what is the point in working.
Just like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Paul Ryan gave it all up after their first $200,000 and stowed their effort and talents under a rock in Galt’s Gulch.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/households-lose-out-on-hundreds-or-thousands-of-dollars-due-to-slow-pay-gains-2018-05-22?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
Being Americans, however, all of these folks are gratified to NOT receive wage increases, because it might kick them into higher tax brackets.
Corporate America is colluding with the filthy republican party by not increasing wages, so that revenue via the income tax to the government does NOT increase, thus bankrupting the government during the next economic downturn.
If their wages do rise, given prevailing conservative behavioral economic claptrap, expect tens of millions of Americans to quit their jobs wholesale and become front-porch whittlers and yarn-spinners, because what is the point in working.
Just like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Paul Ryan gave it all up after their first $200,000 and stowed their effort and talents under a rock in Galt’s Gulch.
It’s no coincidence that Vlad Putin owns a Harley.
It’s no coincidence that Vlad Putin owns a Harley.
John Bolton:
“I think one advantage of having this meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un so soon, in effect, without months and months and months of preparation, is that President Trump will be able to size Kim Jong Un up and see whether the commitment [to denuclearization] is real.”
Hillary Clinton seemed over-prepared during the 2016 campaign.
That definitely would have led to nuclear war with North Korea, unlike the seat of mp’s pants cosseting his fat behind.
John Bolton:
“I think one advantage of having this meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un so soon, in effect, without months and months and months of preparation, is that President Trump will be able to size Kim Jong Un up and see whether the commitment [to denuclearization] is real.”
Hillary Clinton seemed over-prepared during the 2016 campaign.
That definitely would have led to nuclear war with North Korea, unlike the seat of mp’s pants cosseting his fat behind.
Why this incessant addiction to talking about taxation of *income* instead of taxation of *wealth*…?
My wife and I have spent 40 years of our adult lives paying our taxes like good citizens, in particular providing for our grandparents and parents generations’ pensions and health care in their old age. At the same time, we lived below our means and accumulated a modest amount of wealth to supplement our public pension and health care now that we are almost old.
One side tells me that we can’t have the public part of the promise. This kind of remark strikes me as saying we can’t have the private part. A pox on both positions — the US can afford to support its oldsters, and we don’t have to threaten to tax their wealth to do it.
Why this incessant addiction to talking about taxation of *income* instead of taxation of *wealth*…?
My wife and I have spent 40 years of our adult lives paying our taxes like good citizens, in particular providing for our grandparents and parents generations’ pensions and health care in their old age. At the same time, we lived below our means and accumulated a modest amount of wealth to supplement our public pension and health care now that we are almost old.
One side tells me that we can’t have the public part of the promise. This kind of remark strikes me as saying we can’t have the private part. A pox on both positions — the US can afford to support its oldsters, and we don’t have to threaten to tax their wealth to do it.
the US can afford to support its oldsters, and we don’t have to threaten to tax their wealth to do it.
With the declining birthrate and restrictions on immigration, this isn’t going to last. In a few decades, we could be where Japan is now.
the US can afford to support its oldsters, and we don’t have to threaten to tax their wealth to do it.
With the declining birthrate and restrictions on immigration, this isn’t going to last. In a few decades, we could be where Japan is now.
One side tells me that we can’t have the public part of the promise. This kind of remark strikes me as saying we can’t have the private part.
I would suggest that this depends on what levels of wealth would be taxed and how much. Perhaps those would depend on some small number of life circumstances, possibly addressing your concerns.
One side tells me that we can’t have the public part of the promise. This kind of remark strikes me as saying we can’t have the private part.
I would suggest that this depends on what levels of wealth would be taxed and how much. Perhaps those would depend on some small number of life circumstances, possibly addressing your concerns.
Part I
Sometime back, I did a drive-by to the effect that 90% of the equipment for LJ’s prostate cancer treatment (I think that was the context) would be the product of the private sector, which Russell pronounced to be ‘horseshit’ and now we have WJ opining that there is a point at which any rational person has enough.
These are related points. There isn’t a single piece of medical equipment–or anything else manufactured that I can think of–that is actually produced by a government in the western world. Cars, airplanes, toasters and so on into material infinity, every damn thing we use, wear, eat, drink (except water up to a point) is the product of the private sector and more to the point, capitalism.
If ‘enough’ became the law via the tax code, we would unemploy millions overnight. Private airplanes, high end cars, second and third homes, homes of certain size, all kinds of luxury items which have multiple layers of suppliers, assemblers, manufacturers, etc would be out of business because ‘enough’ is a limit on what people can make and therefore, what they can buy.
There would be no new industrial or other innovations. Who would ever have the vision and be willing to execute on the next Microsoft if the rest of us take away everything they make over X amount?
And, really, why does anyone give a shit how much someone else makes?
Does anyone believe that the money I make is money I take away from someone else? Who did Bill Gates and Warren Buffet rob to get their billions?
The answer is ‘no one.’
The other piece of this ‘enough’ business is that, if it had been in place 100 years ago, what we think of as the modern world would not exist. Capital formation and investment is the only proven method of producing material goods at an affordable cost. There are no artisanal cars or washing machines or MRI machines. It is the only system that, over time, have consistently delivered progress and innovation.
Capital, however, does not have agency. Only people with the vision and creativity to employ and direct resources make these things happen. Many fail, some don’t.
People are, to a degree, fungible. Pretty much anyone can wash dishes. Not anyone can be an oncological surgeon. For those who think oncological surgeons should make less money and care more about their patients, why not get your own ass into med school, take out a fuck load of loans, burn the midnight oil for years and years, go through more years of specialized training and then work for 120K a year–or whatever amount the Council on Fair Compensation for All decides is right for that specific job. Here’s another bit of info, not all surgeons of whatever specialization are fungible. Some are demonstrably better than others. As a result, they get paid more. Go figure.
I’m having dinner tonight with a retired orthopedic surgeon. Because of the number of years he trained and the physically grueling nature of orthopedic surgery, he was able to practice only 27 years. His best year was a bit over 500K. He put two kids through college, made thousands of lives better because he was an unusually good cutter but had a limited professional work life because of the time it took to train and the physical limits we are all born with. He was and is a great doctor but he was also motivated by the pay.
In an ‘enough’ world, why would anyone bother to do what he did?
Part II
In a world of 7 or so billion people, what person has the necessary knowledge to determine how much is enough? Because that is what is under discussion. Whether it’s the electorate led by the political class (there’s a productive group for you) or some appointed body of Wise People, someone is going to have to make that call. Anyone thinking they have the chops for that job is probably the last person who ought to be doing it.
Part III
This discussion is one of several areas in which the Progressive Left’s views are really quite scary. There is virtually no hesitancy in deciding for other people what they can and cannot have, what they must and must not do. All in the name of fairness, of course. With the Progressive Left deciding what’s fair. Damn.
Part I
Sometime back, I did a drive-by to the effect that 90% of the equipment for LJ’s prostate cancer treatment (I think that was the context) would be the product of the private sector, which Russell pronounced to be ‘horseshit’ and now we have WJ opining that there is a point at which any rational person has enough.
These are related points. There isn’t a single piece of medical equipment–or anything else manufactured that I can think of–that is actually produced by a government in the western world. Cars, airplanes, toasters and so on into material infinity, every damn thing we use, wear, eat, drink (except water up to a point) is the product of the private sector and more to the point, capitalism.
If ‘enough’ became the law via the tax code, we would unemploy millions overnight. Private airplanes, high end cars, second and third homes, homes of certain size, all kinds of luxury items which have multiple layers of suppliers, assemblers, manufacturers, etc would be out of business because ‘enough’ is a limit on what people can make and therefore, what they can buy.
There would be no new industrial or other innovations. Who would ever have the vision and be willing to execute on the next Microsoft if the rest of us take away everything they make over X amount?
And, really, why does anyone give a shit how much someone else makes?
Does anyone believe that the money I make is money I take away from someone else? Who did Bill Gates and Warren Buffet rob to get their billions?
The answer is ‘no one.’
The other piece of this ‘enough’ business is that, if it had been in place 100 years ago, what we think of as the modern world would not exist. Capital formation and investment is the only proven method of producing material goods at an affordable cost. There are no artisanal cars or washing machines or MRI machines. It is the only system that, over time, have consistently delivered progress and innovation.
Capital, however, does not have agency. Only people with the vision and creativity to employ and direct resources make these things happen. Many fail, some don’t.
People are, to a degree, fungible. Pretty much anyone can wash dishes. Not anyone can be an oncological surgeon. For those who think oncological surgeons should make less money and care more about their patients, why not get your own ass into med school, take out a fuck load of loans, burn the midnight oil for years and years, go through more years of specialized training and then work for 120K a year–or whatever amount the Council on Fair Compensation for All decides is right for that specific job. Here’s another bit of info, not all surgeons of whatever specialization are fungible. Some are demonstrably better than others. As a result, they get paid more. Go figure.
I’m having dinner tonight with a retired orthopedic surgeon. Because of the number of years he trained and the physically grueling nature of orthopedic surgery, he was able to practice only 27 years. His best year was a bit over 500K. He put two kids through college, made thousands of lives better because he was an unusually good cutter but had a limited professional work life because of the time it took to train and the physical limits we are all born with. He was and is a great doctor but he was also motivated by the pay.
In an ‘enough’ world, why would anyone bother to do what he did?
Part II
In a world of 7 or so billion people, what person has the necessary knowledge to determine how much is enough? Because that is what is under discussion. Whether it’s the electorate led by the political class (there’s a productive group for you) or some appointed body of Wise People, someone is going to have to make that call. Anyone thinking they have the chops for that job is probably the last person who ought to be doing it.
Part III
This discussion is one of several areas in which the Progressive Left’s views are really quite scary. There is virtually no hesitancy in deciding for other people what they can and cannot have, what they must and must not do. All in the name of fairness, of course. With the Progressive Left deciding what’s fair. Damn.
wj’s proposal is a broad-brush thought experiment, not likely to be implemented in the real world in any future that’s foreseeable.
In regard to almost any topic actually in the news today, I could write this:
This discussion is one of several areas in which the Reactionary Right’s views are really quite scary. There is virtually no hesitancy in deciding for other people what kind of a Dickensian world they must live in. All in the name of liberty, of course. With the Reactionary Right deciding what constitutes freedom. Damn.
Hey, wj, I asked you last night how you can go on calling yourself a Republican with views like these. Now we know the truth: you’re part of the “Progressive Left.” And that’s definitely meant to be a dirty word.
Welcome to the barricades! Did you bring plenty of hats?
wj’s proposal is a broad-brush thought experiment, not likely to be implemented in the real world in any future that’s foreseeable.
In regard to almost any topic actually in the news today, I could write this:
This discussion is one of several areas in which the Reactionary Right’s views are really quite scary. There is virtually no hesitancy in deciding for other people what kind of a Dickensian world they must live in. All in the name of liberty, of course. With the Reactionary Right deciding what constitutes freedom. Damn.
Hey, wj, I asked you last night how you can go on calling yourself a Republican with views like these. Now we know the truth: you’re part of the “Progressive Left.” And that’s definitely meant to be a dirty word.
Welcome to the barricades! Did you bring plenty of hats?
Who would ever have the vision and be willing to execute on the next Microsoft if the rest of us take away everything they make over X amount?
Kind of an amazing view of human nature that no one would ever do anything good or useful without the possibility of getting rich from it. Damn.
Who would ever have the vision and be willing to execute on the next Microsoft if the rest of us take away everything they make over X amount?
Kind of an amazing view of human nature that no one would ever do anything good or useful without the possibility of getting rich from it. Damn.
His best year was a bit over 500K.
Then he probably wouldn’t see much of a difference in his tax outlay under what wj brought up and the rest of us are discussing. And I don’t think anyone is suggesting that people shouldn’t be allowed to reach any income level they want. It’s a question of whether they would find whatever additional income worth obtaining under a given tax regime.
You can ignore the actual high concentration of income and wealth going on right now. You can ignore the fact that it wasn’t always this way and that things were fine (at least economically, in general) when they weren’t. You can ignore the bad sh*t that happened in the particular times in the past when similar concentrations of income and wealth occurred. You can mischaracterize what we’re discussing by assuming specifics that would make it unworkable and that no one has put forth.
You can do lots of things.
His best year was a bit over 500K.
Then he probably wouldn’t see much of a difference in his tax outlay under what wj brought up and the rest of us are discussing. And I don’t think anyone is suggesting that people shouldn’t be allowed to reach any income level they want. It’s a question of whether they would find whatever additional income worth obtaining under a given tax regime.
You can ignore the actual high concentration of income and wealth going on right now. You can ignore the fact that it wasn’t always this way and that things were fine (at least economically, in general) when they weren’t. You can ignore the bad sh*t that happened in the particular times in the past when similar concentrations of income and wealth occurred. You can mischaracterize what we’re discussing by assuming specifics that would make it unworkable and that no one has put forth.
You can do lots of things.
I might add, as far as government contributions go:
(from Wikipedia)
I might add, as far as government contributions go:
(from Wikipedia)
You can do lots of things.
Only if the money is right.
You can do lots of things.
Only if the money is right.
For those who think oncological surgeons should make less money and care more about their patients, why not get your own ass into med school, take out a fuck load of loans, burn the midnight oil for years and years, go through more years of specialized training and then work for 120K a year–or whatever amount the Council on Fair Compensation for All decides is right for that specific job. (Emphasis added.)
The bolded part probably wouldn’t be necessary if we had a sane public-funding regime.
And, again, no one is trying to decide what income-level anyone can reach. We’re talking about at what point people might decide for themselves that the next dollar isn’t worth going after, if dollars are what motivates them.
For those who think oncological surgeons should make less money and care more about their patients, why not get your own ass into med school, take out a fuck load of loans, burn the midnight oil for years and years, go through more years of specialized training and then work for 120K a year–or whatever amount the Council on Fair Compensation for All decides is right for that specific job. (Emphasis added.)
The bolded part probably wouldn’t be necessary if we had a sane public-funding regime.
And, again, no one is trying to decide what income-level anyone can reach. We’re talking about at what point people might decide for themselves that the next dollar isn’t worth going after, if dollars are what motivates them.
Albert Einstein
Marie Curie
Charles Drew (AFAICT)
All sorts of things with origins in government work. The NSF hasn’t exactly sat on its hands all these years, nor of course has the DoD.
Albert Einstein
Marie Curie
Charles Drew (AFAICT)
All sorts of things with origins in government work. The NSF hasn’t exactly sat on its hands all these years, nor of course has the DoD.
whew. that pile of straw burned really brightly!
whew. that pile of straw burned really brightly!
Damn.
Damn.
The notion that there’s even a clear line between government and the private sector when discussing something as diffuse as technological innovation is fundamentally wrong. It’s like arguing about whether runners use oxygen or their legs.
The notion that there’s even a clear line between government and the private sector when discussing something as diffuse as technological innovation is fundamentally wrong. It’s like arguing about whether runners use oxygen or their legs.
Deferred income in sports contracts is nothing new. Bobby Bonilla has not played baseball since 2001, but the New York Mets are paying him $1,193,248.20 every July 1st through 2035.
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/16650867/why-mets-pay-bobby-bonilla-119-million-today-every-july-1-2035
Deferred income in sports contracts is nothing new. Bobby Bonilla has not played baseball since 2001, but the New York Mets are paying him $1,193,248.20 every July 1st through 2035.
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/16650867/why-mets-pay-bobby-bonilla-119-million-today-every-july-1-2035
There is a strong case to be made, apologies if wrong but I think Yglesias plays with it, for not taxing the rich at all. A combination of MMT and very high taxes on the 99%, distributed by the state in the form of goods and services (free healthcare, free college…NOT checks, tax breaks or credits) will create a public independent of the 1% and a self-sustaining economy with just enough 1% investment to fund innovation and growth.
Marxist rule #2*: Labour makes capital.
Keynesian or Kaleckian reformist corollary:
Jobs, wage-share create investment.
*Marxist rule #1: People gather together, eat,do drugs (coffee, alcohol, sugar), listen to music, flirt and flatter, and talk shit. Someplace in between gossip and jokes work gets done for capitalists.
In the gathering and bullshit history happens. Ain’t no stopping it, no point encouraging it.
The historical materialist looks to where the conversation is most intense and does not try to for instance force it onto a factory floor.
There is a strong case to be made, apologies if wrong but I think Yglesias plays with it, for not taxing the rich at all. A combination of MMT and very high taxes on the 99%, distributed by the state in the form of goods and services (free healthcare, free college…NOT checks, tax breaks or credits) will create a public independent of the 1% and a self-sustaining economy with just enough 1% investment to fund innovation and growth.
Marxist rule #2*: Labour makes capital.
Keynesian or Kaleckian reformist corollary:
Jobs, wage-share create investment.
*Marxist rule #1: People gather together, eat,do drugs (coffee, alcohol, sugar), listen to music, flirt and flatter, and talk shit. Someplace in between gossip and jokes work gets done for capitalists.
In the gathering and bullshit history happens. Ain’t no stopping it, no point encouraging it.
The historical materialist looks to where the conversation is most intense and does not try to for instance force it onto a factory floor.
I note wj does mention a close to 100% marginal tax rate in the post.
I note wj does mention a close to 100% marginal tax rate in the post.
In a few decades, we could be where Japan is now.
It’s no longer off the eastern shore of Asia? Where have they put it? And if we are going to be in the same place, I’d like to know what the weather is like.
In a few decades, we could be where Japan is now.
It’s no longer off the eastern shore of Asia? Where have they put it? And if we are going to be in the same place, I’d like to know what the weather is like.
Who would ever have the vision and be willing to execute on the next Microsoft if the rest of us take away everything they make over X amount?
My observation, having been in IT for some decades now (including working at a couple of start-ups) is that lots of people would. In addition to the examples already offered, you might consider the enormous amount of time and effort that goes into “open source” software. That is, software that is made publicly available, and which anyone can download and use without charge.
Not to say that there aren’t those who are motivated primarily by the possibility (although anyone in the business knows that the odds are quite poor) of getting rich. But that’s probably not the majority, let alone a substantial one.
And as for the next Microsoft, there are other operating systems out there. (Many, but not all, based on Unix.) Microsoft’s dominance is based on great marketing, not on exceptional technology.
Who would ever have the vision and be willing to execute on the next Microsoft if the rest of us take away everything they make over X amount?
My observation, having been in IT for some decades now (including working at a couple of start-ups) is that lots of people would. In addition to the examples already offered, you might consider the enormous amount of time and effort that goes into “open source” software. That is, software that is made publicly available, and which anyone can download and use without charge.
Not to say that there aren’t those who are motivated primarily by the possibility (although anyone in the business knows that the odds are quite poor) of getting rich. But that’s probably not the majority, let alone a substantial one.
And as for the next Microsoft, there are other operating systems out there. (Many, but not all, based on Unix.) Microsoft’s dominance is based on great marketing, not on exceptional technology.
Just one other small FYI. You know how critical the Internet is to moddern economies. Janie mentioned its origins in a US government project. What you may not know is how it is managed today.
All those protocols that Janie mentions, and more besides (including the security protocols) are created entirely by volunteers. The IETF, which provides what management structure there is, makes its decisions via “rough concensus” — the folks who happen to me in the room hum (rather than vote or something) and that’s how decisions get done. And nobody gets paid based on the work that they put in.
Just one other small FYI. You know how critical the Internet is to moddern economies. Janie mentioned its origins in a US government project. What you may not know is how it is managed today.
All those protocols that Janie mentions, and more besides (including the security protocols) are created entirely by volunteers. The IETF, which provides what management structure there is, makes its decisions via “rough concensus” — the folks who happen to me in the room hum (rather than vote or something) and that’s how decisions get done. And nobody gets paid based on the work that they put in.
You can ignore the actual high concentration of income and wealth going on right now. You can ignore the fact that it wasn’t always this way and that things were fine (at least economically, in general) when they weren’t. You can ignore the bad sh*t that happened in the particular times in the past when similar concentrations of income and wealth occurred. You can mischaracterize what we’re discussing by assuming specifics that would make it unworkable and that no one has put forth.
When were those good times? Are you saying there was a time when the average person was better off than the average person is today? As opposed to there being a larger gap today between the average person and the top tier than at some point in the past?
Do normal people give a damn how much money someone else has? Why the interest in capping what someone makes or can keep? To what end? Do people really think that if one person makes less then someone else makes more?
We’re talking about at what point people might decide for themselves that the next dollar isn’t worth going after, if dollars are what motivates them.
I see no practical difference. You are using the tax code to decide how much of what someone earns they can keep. Once you decide that, in addition to imposing what is effectively a cap on earnings, you limit the amount of capital that can be accumulated and invested, in addition to taking away the very incentive to do something large.
The NSF hasn’t exactly sat on its hands all these years, nor of course has the DoD.
Nor did anyone say otherwise. Read what I wrote. Conceiving of an MRI machine, building the first experimental model, all of that may well have been done at a hospital or through governmental grants (but odds are, more likely as a DOD spin off), but there are millions of us and only one experimental machine. Someone had to put together the money to build a bunch of MRI’s and to gamble that there would be enough of a market to cover costs and make a profit. Ditto TV’s, razor blades and toilet paper.
The notion that there’s even a clear line between government and the private sector when discussing something as diffuse as technological innovation is fundamentally wrong. It’s like arguing about whether runners use oxygen or their legs.
You are confusing innovation and production. Converting theory into commercially available reality is the point here. Capital, i.e. excess money available for investment in the hope of generating a return commensurate with the risk, is the only proven method of producing virtually anything. Capping income via confiscatory tax rates because someone decides what is ‘enough’ brings all of that to an end.
Capital doesn’t necessarily invent stuff, but inventions alone don’t do anyone any good unless they can be converted into something accessible. That’s what capital does.
Please note: I am not saying the process is pretty, that it is perfect, that it is benign or that it doesn’t produce its own share of problems. It is, however, essential to past, present and future progress and maintaining was reasonable standard of living.
You can ignore the actual high concentration of income and wealth going on right now. You can ignore the fact that it wasn’t always this way and that things were fine (at least economically, in general) when they weren’t. You can ignore the bad sh*t that happened in the particular times in the past when similar concentrations of income and wealth occurred. You can mischaracterize what we’re discussing by assuming specifics that would make it unworkable and that no one has put forth.
When were those good times? Are you saying there was a time when the average person was better off than the average person is today? As opposed to there being a larger gap today between the average person and the top tier than at some point in the past?
Do normal people give a damn how much money someone else has? Why the interest in capping what someone makes or can keep? To what end? Do people really think that if one person makes less then someone else makes more?
We’re talking about at what point people might decide for themselves that the next dollar isn’t worth going after, if dollars are what motivates them.
I see no practical difference. You are using the tax code to decide how much of what someone earns they can keep. Once you decide that, in addition to imposing what is effectively a cap on earnings, you limit the amount of capital that can be accumulated and invested, in addition to taking away the very incentive to do something large.
The NSF hasn’t exactly sat on its hands all these years, nor of course has the DoD.
Nor did anyone say otherwise. Read what I wrote. Conceiving of an MRI machine, building the first experimental model, all of that may well have been done at a hospital or through governmental grants (but odds are, more likely as a DOD spin off), but there are millions of us and only one experimental machine. Someone had to put together the money to build a bunch of MRI’s and to gamble that there would be enough of a market to cover costs and make a profit. Ditto TV’s, razor blades and toilet paper.
The notion that there’s even a clear line between government and the private sector when discussing something as diffuse as technological innovation is fundamentally wrong. It’s like arguing about whether runners use oxygen or their legs.
You are confusing innovation and production. Converting theory into commercially available reality is the point here. Capital, i.e. excess money available for investment in the hope of generating a return commensurate with the risk, is the only proven method of producing virtually anything. Capping income via confiscatory tax rates because someone decides what is ‘enough’ brings all of that to an end.
Capital doesn’t necessarily invent stuff, but inventions alone don’t do anyone any good unless they can be converted into something accessible. That’s what capital does.
Please note: I am not saying the process is pretty, that it is perfect, that it is benign or that it doesn’t produce its own share of problems. It is, however, essential to past, present and future progress and maintaining was reasonable standard of living.
And as for the next Microsoft, there are other operating systems out there. (Many, but not all, based on Unix.) Microsoft’s dominance is based on great marketing, not on exceptional technology.
And yet, Microsoft dominates. But leave aside software per se. The industrial base that is an essential condition precedent to the internet and a computer based society is the end product of 6 decades of post WWII, capital-driven investment. The composites that make up the computer screen I’m looking at right now didn’t exist 30 years ago, or if they did, they were so hugely expensive, they were inaccessible to normal people. It was only through the market that costs were driven down by innovation and competition.
Impose caps and all of that goes away. But regardless. Even if income caps were somehow societally-neutral, why screw with other people? Who has the right to disapprove of what someone else makes if they want to work hard enough, of if they have a good enough idea?
And as for the next Microsoft, there are other operating systems out there. (Many, but not all, based on Unix.) Microsoft’s dominance is based on great marketing, not on exceptional technology.
And yet, Microsoft dominates. But leave aside software per se. The industrial base that is an essential condition precedent to the internet and a computer based society is the end product of 6 decades of post WWII, capital-driven investment. The composites that make up the computer screen I’m looking at right now didn’t exist 30 years ago, or if they did, they were so hugely expensive, they were inaccessible to normal people. It was only through the market that costs were driven down by innovation and competition.
Impose caps and all of that goes away. But regardless. Even if income caps were somehow societally-neutral, why screw with other people? Who has the right to disapprove of what someone else makes if they want to work hard enough, of if they have a good enough idea?
It was only through the market that costs were driven down by innovation and competition.
Impose caps and all of that goes away.
I may have missed something, but I don’t see much support here for eliminating the market.
The market does drive some innovation. But anyone who has worked in a large company can tell you that getting agreement to implement an innovation is a HUGE effort. Implementing an innovation that a competitor has proven out already? Sure. But being first? Not so much.
And I’m missing the link between high marginal taxes on extremely high individual incomes and disincentives on companies when it comes to innovation. Or are you arguing that companies would stopp competing if CEOs couldn’t become multimillionaires? (Might want to ask the Count if his baseball team competes. Even though none of them are getting rich off their efforts.)
The fact is, money isn’t necessarily the only driver of innovation and competition. (I confess that I’m not familiar with the law as a business. Perhaps things are different thete.)
It was only through the market that costs were driven down by innovation and competition.
Impose caps and all of that goes away.
I may have missed something, but I don’t see much support here for eliminating the market.
The market does drive some innovation. But anyone who has worked in a large company can tell you that getting agreement to implement an innovation is a HUGE effort. Implementing an innovation that a competitor has proven out already? Sure. But being first? Not so much.
And I’m missing the link between high marginal taxes on extremely high individual incomes and disincentives on companies when it comes to innovation. Or are you arguing that companies would stopp competing if CEOs couldn’t become multimillionaires? (Might want to ask the Count if his baseball team competes. Even though none of them are getting rich off their efforts.)
The fact is, money isn’t necessarily the only driver of innovation and competition. (I confess that I’m not familiar with the law as a business. Perhaps things are different thete.)
If you are one of the fat-dumb-and-happy 9.9%, e.g. a successful lawyer or a dedicated orthopedic surgeon, you can easily fool yourself into thinking that you are not “working class”. Even though “working” is what you do to earn your comfortable living, you can fall into the error of identifying with the 0.1% despite the fact that they can buy or sell you 10-100 times over. You might even imagine that any discussion of “enough” is a commie plot against you.
But let’s get down to brass tacks.
McKinney: Do people really think that if one person makes less then someone else makes more?
No. But there seem to exist people whose idea is that if someone else makes more, their own fortune becomes worth less. There’s some truth in that. “Rich” would lose its cachet if janitors and lettuce-pickers could afford to eat at expensive restaurants or buy the services of top lawyers and orthopedic surgeons.
McKinney: Capital, i.e. excess money available for investment in the hope of generating a return commensurate with the risk, is the only proven method of producing virtually anything.
What the hell is “excess” money? Is it money over and above what is “enough”?
Anyway, is there a difference between “capital” and concentrated “capital”. If working people like janitors, lettuce pickers, lawyers and surgeons (with their subjective but finite notions of “enough”) could save up some money, would that money NOT be “capital” available to be pooled into promising enterprises?
McKinney: Who has the right to disapprove of what someone else makes if they want to work hard enough, of if they have a good enough idea?
This is the working-class view of how the super-rich generally get to be super-rich. What was Paris Hilton’s “good enough idea”?
–TP
If you are one of the fat-dumb-and-happy 9.9%, e.g. a successful lawyer or a dedicated orthopedic surgeon, you can easily fool yourself into thinking that you are not “working class”. Even though “working” is what you do to earn your comfortable living, you can fall into the error of identifying with the 0.1% despite the fact that they can buy or sell you 10-100 times over. You might even imagine that any discussion of “enough” is a commie plot against you.
But let’s get down to brass tacks.
McKinney: Do people really think that if one person makes less then someone else makes more?
No. But there seem to exist people whose idea is that if someone else makes more, their own fortune becomes worth less. There’s some truth in that. “Rich” would lose its cachet if janitors and lettuce-pickers could afford to eat at expensive restaurants or buy the services of top lawyers and orthopedic surgeons.
McKinney: Capital, i.e. excess money available for investment in the hope of generating a return commensurate with the risk, is the only proven method of producing virtually anything.
What the hell is “excess” money? Is it money over and above what is “enough”?
Anyway, is there a difference between “capital” and concentrated “capital”. If working people like janitors, lettuce pickers, lawyers and surgeons (with their subjective but finite notions of “enough”) could save up some money, would that money NOT be “capital” available to be pooled into promising enterprises?
McKinney: Who has the right to disapprove of what someone else makes if they want to work hard enough, of if they have a good enough idea?
This is the working-class view of how the super-rich generally get to be super-rich. What was Paris Hilton’s “good enough idea”?
–TP
What the hell is “excess” money? Is it money over and above what is “enough”?
LOL.
What the hell is “excess” money? Is it money over and above what is “enough”?
LOL.
Supply-side dogma will never die, no matter the empircism to the contrary. What I think we’re saying here, many of us at least, is that a thousand millionaires would be a lot better than one billionaire.
Supply-side dogma will never die, no matter the empircism to the contrary. What I think we’re saying here, many of us at least, is that a thousand millionaires would be a lot better than one billionaire.
What was Paris Hilton’s “good enough idea”?
The obvious answer: Being the great granddaughter of Conrad Hilton. (Wonder why more people don’t choose to do that…?)
What was Paris Hilton’s “good enough idea”?
The obvious answer: Being the great granddaughter of Conrad Hilton. (Wonder why more people don’t choose to do that…?)
I would suggest that this depends on what levels of wealth would be taxed and how much. Perhaps those would depend on some small number of life circumstances, possibly addressing your concerns.
Indeed, such details might address the concerns. I haven’t seen any yet. I’ll also point out that one good-sized chunk of our wealth is already taxed — the property tax bill on our house is larger than our income tax bill now that we’re retired and sufficiently old.
Myself, I would like to see a progressive consumption tax in place of an income tax. The government(s) already collect almost all of the information to do that.
I would suggest that this depends on what levels of wealth would be taxed and how much. Perhaps those would depend on some small number of life circumstances, possibly addressing your concerns.
Indeed, such details might address the concerns. I haven’t seen any yet. I’ll also point out that one good-sized chunk of our wealth is already taxed — the property tax bill on our house is larger than our income tax bill now that we’re retired and sufficiently old.
Myself, I would like to see a progressive consumption tax in place of an income tax. The government(s) already collect almost all of the information to do that.
Sometime back, I did a drive-by to the effect that 90% of the equipment for LJ’s prostate cancer treatment (I think that was the context) would be the product of the private sector, which Russell pronounced to be ‘horseshit’ and now we have WJ opining that there is a point at which any rational person has enough.
Just for reference, the comment is here
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2018/01/your-obwi-hospital-report.html?cid=6a00d834515c2369e201b7c94583fd970b#comment-6a00d834515c2369e201b7c94583fd970b
1. Virtually every device and medicine used in modern medicine is the product of free enterprise and the profit motive.
It’s good that you’ve now limited it to 90% and my prostate cancer treatment. I still think it is debatable, but it is always good to see you soften a claim. I just wish you could maybe start off with the softer version rather than try to draw people out with the outrageous statement and then backtrack. As everyone’s mother used to say, it’s great fun until someone gets an eye poked out…
Sometime back, I did a drive-by to the effect that 90% of the equipment for LJ’s prostate cancer treatment (I think that was the context) would be the product of the private sector, which Russell pronounced to be ‘horseshit’ and now we have WJ opining that there is a point at which any rational person has enough.
Just for reference, the comment is here
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2018/01/your-obwi-hospital-report.html?cid=6a00d834515c2369e201b7c94583fd970b#comment-6a00d834515c2369e201b7c94583fd970b
1. Virtually every device and medicine used in modern medicine is the product of free enterprise and the profit motive.
It’s good that you’ve now limited it to 90% and my prostate cancer treatment. I still think it is debatable, but it is always good to see you soften a claim. I just wish you could maybe start off with the softer version rather than try to draw people out with the outrageous statement and then backtrack. As everyone’s mother used to say, it’s great fun until someone gets an eye poked out…
A couple of observations on motivation, apropos of nothing in particular:
1) In my peak earning years, I was paying tax at 52 pence in the pound on my marginal income. The first 50p I didn’t begrudge the government, but the last 2p (which was called ‘National Insurance’) I thought a bit rude.
If there were occasions when I went home to my family rather than earn more money for the chancellor to waste, I regret that not at all.
2) When my wife got sick, I quit, because I didn’t really need the money but I did need the time. So high pay caused me to work less, not more.
A couple of observations on motivation, apropos of nothing in particular:
1) In my peak earning years, I was paying tax at 52 pence in the pound on my marginal income. The first 50p I didn’t begrudge the government, but the last 2p (which was called ‘National Insurance’) I thought a bit rude.
If there were occasions when I went home to my family rather than earn more money for the chancellor to waste, I regret that not at all.
2) When my wife got sick, I quit, because I didn’t really need the money but I did need the time. So high pay caused me to work less, not more.
So high pay caused me to work less, not more.
Per the concept of diminishing marginal utility, that’s how it is supposed to work.
So high pay caused me to work less, not more.
Per the concept of diminishing marginal utility, that’s how it is supposed to work.
Myself, I would like to see a progressive consumption tax in place of an income tax. The government(s) already collect almost all of the information to do that.
I could go along with this. However, other public policies we have adopted concentrate incomes and the associated wealth and political power in a very small slice of the population….wealth to such levels, that actually spending it on ‘consumption’ is simply not possible.
So we either change these policies (my preference) or levy taxes on the concentrated wealth and income (huge incentive for political corruption & creating the tax avoidance industry).
If you want a list, I’d be happy to oblige in a drive by response!
Myself, I would like to see a progressive consumption tax in place of an income tax. The government(s) already collect almost all of the information to do that.
I could go along with this. However, other public policies we have adopted concentrate incomes and the associated wealth and political power in a very small slice of the population….wealth to such levels, that actually spending it on ‘consumption’ is simply not possible.
So we either change these policies (my preference) or levy taxes on the concentrated wealth and income (huge incentive for political corruption & creating the tax avoidance industry).
If you want a list, I’d be happy to oblige in a drive by response!
When were those good times? Are you saying there was a time when the average person was better off than the average person is today?
Depending on how you count it*, very possibly.
There are various non-GDP based (or not-primarily-GDP-based) measures of median national well being. Many of those peaked as early as the early seventies.
This is remarkably consistent with other observations about the subsequent period. E.g., stagnant wage growth, the fact that people born in the 80’s or after face more precarious situations in all kinds of ways, are expected to be unable to accumulate anywhere near as much lifetime wealth as their parents, etc.
—-
* I simplifiy, but it often sort of comes down to whether you consider cars with airbags and cell phones with the latest facebook app loaded to be an acceptable tradeoff for, say, homeownership and a secure pension plan. They probably aren’t, and it’s kind of a false dichotomy anyway. Contra, well, yourself, there’s not actually any evidence whatsoever that an 80% marginal top rate would have resulted in a world without iphones.
When were those good times? Are you saying there was a time when the average person was better off than the average person is today?
Depending on how you count it*, very possibly.
There are various non-GDP based (or not-primarily-GDP-based) measures of median national well being. Many of those peaked as early as the early seventies.
This is remarkably consistent with other observations about the subsequent period. E.g., stagnant wage growth, the fact that people born in the 80’s or after face more precarious situations in all kinds of ways, are expected to be unable to accumulate anywhere near as much lifetime wealth as their parents, etc.
—-
* I simplifiy, but it often sort of comes down to whether you consider cars with airbags and cell phones with the latest facebook app loaded to be an acceptable tradeoff for, say, homeownership and a secure pension plan. They probably aren’t, and it’s kind of a false dichotomy anyway. Contra, well, yourself, there’s not actually any evidence whatsoever that an 80% marginal top rate would have resulted in a world without iphones.
Do normal people give a damn how much money someone else has? Why the interest in capping what someone makes or can keep? To what end? Do people really think that if one person makes less then someone else makes more?
Nobody really cares what anybody else makes. There’s a certain sort of person who always cries ‘jealousy’ whenever anyone dares to suggest that maybe the ultra rich could afford to pay a little more taxes or whatever, but that’s obviously a red herring of an argument (if not simply projection…). I’m sure you’d never take that tack!
So that leaves your basic question of why. I thought this was pretty well covered in the OP and some of the comments above the point where you came in, but let me hit some of the high points as I see them:
1. Redistributing money from someone who literally has more than they can put to any practical use can nevertheless be great help in providing important things for people who have less, and thus make the average person better off (see the above about how on average, Americans have not been getting better off – and very possibly have been going backwards – for several decades).
This was, I think, the main thrust of the OP. And it’s an extremely salient point.
2. The valorization of accumulating wealth for its own sake has an incredibly distorting effect on the arrangement of society.
It’s bad enough when a CEO gets a 10 million dollar bonus for doing a job not demonstrably any better than any of his/her peers could, while an adjunct professor somewhere supplements their grocery budget by literally prostituting themselves out of the car they are forced to live in because their below-poverty-level teaching salary can’t even buy them an apartment in a mid-western college town.
What’s even worse is that our society has come to deem the former’s utterly pointless — and possibly more than a little pathological — pursuit of another million or ten as not only somehow admirable, but possibly more worthy and admirable than the professor’s passion for learning and teaching.
Money has become not just a scorecard in our society, but the most important scorecard. Maybe the only scorecard.
This is, without overstating in the slightest, a deeply insane path to go down.
3. (or perhaps 2a): this applies to businesses and business-people too. When I mentioned doing a job well and producing a quality product, I didn’t have in mind ‘artisanal pocket watch making’ or whatever – which is possibly the impression you had.
No, I meant even actual, bona fide, major industries.
Imagine businessperson A who builds an enterprise around a product they know and care about. Who makes sure that everything they sell is of a high quality, that their customers are happy, that their employees are well-compensated and leave work with a sense of accomplishment.
Well, businessperson A is obviously an idiot.
Because it’s all about making money don’t you know. Businessperson B would never be such a sucker. For one thing, they’d never bother to build a business in the first place — they’d buy it from a sucker like A, or better yet, one of A’s cheaper competitors. Then they’d sell off any valuable assets, branch off into more lucrative lines of business like financing shopping malls or something, burn the pension plan to the ground, cut compensation, job training, and coffee breaks because who cares about workers or turnover costs, and anyway, the old line of business isn’t anywhere near as profitable as the new divisions, so it’ll need to be offshored somewhere cheaper if it’s to stay around at all… And, well, you get the idea. It’ll all be fantastically profitable for a couple of years, and the shareholders will love it. Then it can be sold on to businessperson C, who really knows how to make money off the former shell of something that actually did something real once…
4. There is an actual social cost to wealth concentration. I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet, but it’s certainly out there in the ‘literature’ as it were.
Simple analogy: imagine our society and economy is like a pizza pan with a bunch of little marbles or ball bearings happily rolling around on it. We roll and bounce around in our little circles, going about our business. Then along comes a smart ass marble who figures out how to grow bigger. Like, exponentially bigger. Pretty soon, we’re not all just rolling around in our own little way — we’re all stuck in one corner of the sheet, involuntarily nuzzled up against Mr. Fat Marble and the giant dent he’s pressing into the pan.
Note that the little marbles being dissatisfied and wanting to fix that situation nothing to do with wanting to be bigger marbles our, or thinking that Mr. Fat Marble has necessarily stolen any mass from us. The dissatisfactoriness exists quite independently of jealousy or any fixed-size-pie fallacy.
Do normal people give a damn how much money someone else has? Why the interest in capping what someone makes or can keep? To what end? Do people really think that if one person makes less then someone else makes more?
Nobody really cares what anybody else makes. There’s a certain sort of person who always cries ‘jealousy’ whenever anyone dares to suggest that maybe the ultra rich could afford to pay a little more taxes or whatever, but that’s obviously a red herring of an argument (if not simply projection…). I’m sure you’d never take that tack!
So that leaves your basic question of why. I thought this was pretty well covered in the OP and some of the comments above the point where you came in, but let me hit some of the high points as I see them:
1. Redistributing money from someone who literally has more than they can put to any practical use can nevertheless be great help in providing important things for people who have less, and thus make the average person better off (see the above about how on average, Americans have not been getting better off – and very possibly have been going backwards – for several decades).
This was, I think, the main thrust of the OP. And it’s an extremely salient point.
2. The valorization of accumulating wealth for its own sake has an incredibly distorting effect on the arrangement of society.
It’s bad enough when a CEO gets a 10 million dollar bonus for doing a job not demonstrably any better than any of his/her peers could, while an adjunct professor somewhere supplements their grocery budget by literally prostituting themselves out of the car they are forced to live in because their below-poverty-level teaching salary can’t even buy them an apartment in a mid-western college town.
What’s even worse is that our society has come to deem the former’s utterly pointless — and possibly more than a little pathological — pursuit of another million or ten as not only somehow admirable, but possibly more worthy and admirable than the professor’s passion for learning and teaching.
Money has become not just a scorecard in our society, but the most important scorecard. Maybe the only scorecard.
This is, without overstating in the slightest, a deeply insane path to go down.
3. (or perhaps 2a): this applies to businesses and business-people too. When I mentioned doing a job well and producing a quality product, I didn’t have in mind ‘artisanal pocket watch making’ or whatever – which is possibly the impression you had.
No, I meant even actual, bona fide, major industries.
Imagine businessperson A who builds an enterprise around a product they know and care about. Who makes sure that everything they sell is of a high quality, that their customers are happy, that their employees are well-compensated and leave work with a sense of accomplishment.
Well, businessperson A is obviously an idiot.
Because it’s all about making money don’t you know. Businessperson B would never be such a sucker. For one thing, they’d never bother to build a business in the first place — they’d buy it from a sucker like A, or better yet, one of A’s cheaper competitors. Then they’d sell off any valuable assets, branch off into more lucrative lines of business like financing shopping malls or something, burn the pension plan to the ground, cut compensation, job training, and coffee breaks because who cares about workers or turnover costs, and anyway, the old line of business isn’t anywhere near as profitable as the new divisions, so it’ll need to be offshored somewhere cheaper if it’s to stay around at all… And, well, you get the idea. It’ll all be fantastically profitable for a couple of years, and the shareholders will love it. Then it can be sold on to businessperson C, who really knows how to make money off the former shell of something that actually did something real once…
4. There is an actual social cost to wealth concentration. I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet, but it’s certainly out there in the ‘literature’ as it were.
Simple analogy: imagine our society and economy is like a pizza pan with a bunch of little marbles or ball bearings happily rolling around on it. We roll and bounce around in our little circles, going about our business. Then along comes a smart ass marble who figures out how to grow bigger. Like, exponentially bigger. Pretty soon, we’re not all just rolling around in our own little way — we’re all stuck in one corner of the sheet, involuntarily nuzzled up against Mr. Fat Marble and the giant dent he’s pressing into the pan.
Note that the little marbles being dissatisfied and wanting to fix that situation nothing to do with wanting to be bigger marbles our, or thinking that Mr. Fat Marble has necessarily stolen any mass from us. The dissatisfactoriness exists quite independently of jealousy or any fixed-size-pie fallacy.
I would suggest that this depends on what levels of wealth would be taxed and how much. Perhaps those would depend on some small number of life circumstances, possibly addressing your concerns.
Indeed they might — if someone had said something beyond “tax wealth”. I will point out that in our current situation, the largest single tax bill we pay is already a wealth tax — property taxes on our house. That’s saying a lot. This is a state where increasing tax rates (eg mill levies) requires a vote of the people, and where residential property tax collections are pretty sharply controlled relative to total property taxes.
I would suggest that this depends on what levels of wealth would be taxed and how much. Perhaps those would depend on some small number of life circumstances, possibly addressing your concerns.
Indeed they might — if someone had said something beyond “tax wealth”. I will point out that in our current situation, the largest single tax bill we pay is already a wealth tax — property taxes on our house. That’s saying a lot. This is a state where increasing tax rates (eg mill levies) requires a vote of the people, and where residential property tax collections are pretty sharply controlled relative to total property taxes.
Michael Cain, I live in New Jersey. See my comment in response to wj’s about wealth taxes being a one-shot deal. We both know property taxes are an annual (or quarterly, really) occurrance. Mine are in excess of 10% of my pre-tax household income. I know from property taxes.
Michael Cain, I live in New Jersey. See my comment in response to wj’s about wealth taxes being a one-shot deal. We both know property taxes are an annual (or quarterly, really) occurrance. Mine are in excess of 10% of my pre-tax household income. I know from property taxes.
1. Redistributing money from someone who literally has more than they can put to any practical use…
I suspect that very, very little of the money of the very rich is residing in mattresses doing nothing. Instead, it’s in checking and savings accounts, stock, bonds, venture capital, etc. where it’s being used by others to create products and services, jobs, increasing the sum total of wealth.
The question then becomes one of opportunity cost. Can the government create a net positive benefit by taking the money away from its owners instead of leaving it in the private sector?
1. Redistributing money from someone who literally has more than they can put to any practical use…
I suspect that very, very little of the money of the very rich is residing in mattresses doing nothing. Instead, it’s in checking and savings accounts, stock, bonds, venture capital, etc. where it’s being used by others to create products and services, jobs, increasing the sum total of wealth.
The question then becomes one of opportunity cost. Can the government create a net positive benefit by taking the money away from its owners instead of leaving it in the private sector?
I did a drive-by to the effect that 90% of the equipment for LJ’s prostate cancer treatment (I think that was the context) would be the product of the private sector, which Russell pronounced to be ‘horseshit’
I ask one and only one thing of the commentariat: do not mischaracterize things I say to make your own points.
stand on your own two feet, please.
your claim was not limited to “the equipment for LJ’s prostate cancer treatment”, it extended to virtually all medical advances.
which was, and is, horseshit.
tell lies if you like, don’t enlist me in them.
I did a drive-by to the effect that 90% of the equipment for LJ’s prostate cancer treatment (I think that was the context) would be the product of the private sector, which Russell pronounced to be ‘horseshit’
I ask one and only one thing of the commentariat: do not mischaracterize things I say to make your own points.
stand on your own two feet, please.
your claim was not limited to “the equipment for LJ’s prostate cancer treatment”, it extended to virtually all medical advances.
which was, and is, horseshit.
tell lies if you like, don’t enlist me in them.
Can the government create a net positive benefit by taking the money away from its owners instead of leaving it in the private sector?
You mean leaving it where it is in the private sector, rather than putting it somewhere else in the private sector, perhaps even after putting it where it was in the private sector to begin with.
Hey, where did Lockheed get all this money, anyway?
On another note, I’ve decided that my property taxes are only as high as they are because people with less-valuable houses are jealous of me.
Can the government create a net positive benefit by taking the money away from its owners instead of leaving it in the private sector?
You mean leaving it where it is in the private sector, rather than putting it somewhere else in the private sector, perhaps even after putting it where it was in the private sector to begin with.
Hey, where did Lockheed get all this money, anyway?
On another note, I’ve decided that my property taxes are only as high as they are because people with less-valuable houses are jealous of me.
Kind of an amazing view of human nature that no one would ever do anything good or useful without the possibility of getting rich from it
indeed.
people do things for all kinds of reasons. sometimes they’re motivated by money, sometimes they’re not.
most people, by far, are happy to make enough that they can live a basically comfortable life and not be in peril of financial disaster.
a small number of people are driven to accumulate much more – more wealth, more stuff – than they can make any practical use of. i.e., their basic quality of life is not significantly improved by it.
i frankly don’t give a crap how much people make. live your life. i do care that so much of our public policy is focused on enabling the accumulation of ridiculous amounts of money, and i do care that people with great wealth are in many ways “more equal” than the rest of us in areas of public life.
and for what it’s worth, capitalism, with it’s insistence that capital be a privileged factor of production, is not a requirement for a market economy, nor for that matter for capital formation.
Kind of an amazing view of human nature that no one would ever do anything good or useful without the possibility of getting rich from it
indeed.
people do things for all kinds of reasons. sometimes they’re motivated by money, sometimes they’re not.
most people, by far, are happy to make enough that they can live a basically comfortable life and not be in peril of financial disaster.
a small number of people are driven to accumulate much more – more wealth, more stuff – than they can make any practical use of. i.e., their basic quality of life is not significantly improved by it.
i frankly don’t give a crap how much people make. live your life. i do care that so much of our public policy is focused on enabling the accumulation of ridiculous amounts of money, and i do care that people with great wealth are in many ways “more equal” than the rest of us in areas of public life.
and for what it’s worth, capitalism, with it’s insistence that capital be a privileged factor of production, is not a requirement for a market economy, nor for that matter for capital formation.
CharlesWT: Can the government create a net positive benefit by taking the money away from its owners instead of leaving it in the private sector?
This question is not stupid. It IS ill-posed. One might say it’s not EVEN stupid.
Where to start?
First, no substantial chunk of wealth (denominated in “money”) can exist without “the government”. I mean, if you own a piece of real-estate and would like me to pay you money to build my house on it, how can you force me to? Duels having fallen out of favor, I say you’d have to convince The Government that you own that land, by virtue of some title document filed in some Registry of Deeds. If you own a factory and hire me to run it, what forces me to operate it for your profit instead of my own, aside from the fact that you can show The Government records that demonstrate you (and not I) paid for that factory? Your “wealth” (or anybody else’s) consists entirely in the fact that The Government knows about it and acknowledges its ownership.
Second, it’s hard to know what “instead of leaving it in the private sector” means. What exactly can The Government do with “money” other than spend it in “the private sector”? I mean, even if it takes your money and mine and hires vast armies of civil servants with it, their salaries become “private sector” money the minute they cash their paychecks. When a bureaucrat buys a coffee at Dunkin Donuts she is making a private-sector transaction the same way a coal miner or an investment banker would be doing. When The Government buys a highway, an aircraft carrier, or a month’s groceries for a million indigent people, in what possible sense is the money not spent in the private sector of The Economy?
CharlesWT: Can the government create a net positive benefit by taking the money away from its owners instead of leaving it in the private sector?
This question is not stupid. It IS ill-posed. One might say it’s not EVEN stupid.
Where to start?
First, no substantial chunk of wealth (denominated in “money”) can exist without “the government”. I mean, if you own a piece of real-estate and would like me to pay you money to build my house on it, how can you force me to? Duels having fallen out of favor, I say you’d have to convince The Government that you own that land, by virtue of some title document filed in some Registry of Deeds. If you own a factory and hire me to run it, what forces me to operate it for your profit instead of my own, aside from the fact that you can show The Government records that demonstrate you (and not I) paid for that factory? Your “wealth” (or anybody else’s) consists entirely in the fact that The Government knows about it and acknowledges its ownership.
Second, it’s hard to know what “instead of leaving it in the private sector” means. What exactly can The Government do with “money” other than spend it in “the private sector”? I mean, even if it takes your money and mine and hires vast armies of civil servants with it, their salaries become “private sector” money the minute they cash their paychecks. When a bureaucrat buys a coffee at Dunkin Donuts she is making a private-sector transaction the same way a coal miner or an investment banker would be doing. When The Government buys a highway, an aircraft carrier, or a month’s groceries for a million indigent people, in what possible sense is the money not spent in the private sector of The Economy?
My property taxes are in excess of 10% of my pre-tax household income
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true for many of us in the 9.9%. But I strongly doubt it applies to the top 0.1%. At that point, most wealth isn’t in real estate. Except, perhaps, as an investment, versus a place to live personally.
My property taxes are in excess of 10% of my pre-tax household income
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s true for many of us in the 9.9%. But I strongly doubt it applies to the top 0.1%. At that point, most wealth isn’t in real estate. Except, perhaps, as an investment, versus a place to live personally.
I see that hairshirt replied to CharlesWT with more pith (if you’ll pardon the expression) while I was composing my own comment.
–TP
I see that hairshirt replied to CharlesWT with more pith (if you’ll pardon the expression) while I was composing my own comment.
–TP
First, …
So, it’s a prima facie that if the government is doing something, it can not possibly be done by any other entity. Enforcing contracts, the rule of law and maintaining property registries is at least a reasonably viable function of government. Many other things, not so much.
…, in what possible sense is the money not spent in the private sector of The Economy?
It’s still a question of opportunity cost. Government is largely a consumer of wealth, not a creator. And when it does create something of value by spending money, would greater value have been created elsewhere by private actors spend the money?
First, …
So, it’s a prima facie that if the government is doing something, it can not possibly be done by any other entity. Enforcing contracts, the rule of law and maintaining property registries is at least a reasonably viable function of government. Many other things, not so much.
…, in what possible sense is the money not spent in the private sector of The Economy?
It’s still a question of opportunity cost. Government is largely a consumer of wealth, not a creator. And when it does create something of value by spending money, would greater value have been created elsewhere by private actors spend the money?
Government is largely a consumer of wealth, not a creator.
So government spending on the health, welfare, safety, and education of the People is not creating wealth. Your statement is self refuting.
And when it does create something of value by spending money, would greater value have been created elsewhere by private actors spend the money?
That depends. Please tell us the ‘value’ of Wall Street floating bonds to endlessly finance fracking companies that have never, and most likely will never turn a profit. Better yet, sing the songs of praise for private “wealth creators” that despoil our environment- socializing the costs while privatizing the profit. I’m sure you know the song….sing it brother! Surely your opportunity cost calculus machine can enlighten us chas.
Government is largely a consumer of wealth, not a creator.
So government spending on the health, welfare, safety, and education of the People is not creating wealth. Your statement is self refuting.
And when it does create something of value by spending money, would greater value have been created elsewhere by private actors spend the money?
That depends. Please tell us the ‘value’ of Wall Street floating bonds to endlessly finance fracking companies that have never, and most likely will never turn a profit. Better yet, sing the songs of praise for private “wealth creators” that despoil our environment- socializing the costs while privatizing the profit. I’m sure you know the song….sing it brother! Surely your opportunity cost calculus machine can enlighten us chas.
So government spending on the health, welfare, safety, and education of the People is not creating wealth.
Providing these services consumes wealth, not create it. But increases in people’s health, social capital and safety will allow them to create more wealth than otherwise.
So government spending on the health, welfare, safety, and education of the People is not creating wealth.
Providing these services consumes wealth, not create it. But increases in people’s health, social capital and safety will allow them to create more wealth than otherwise.
So, it’s a prima facie that if the government is doing something, it can not possibly be done by any other entity. Enforcing contracts, the rule of law and maintaining property registries is at least a reasonably viable function of government. Many other things, not so much.
I don’t know that anyone (certainly not anyone here) has argued that a non-governmental entity could not have, for example, funded and done the research that led to the Internet. (Or smart phone cameras – that one was from NASA.) But no rational person would think it likely. And no business, seeing how much Xerox PARC didn’t do for Xerox’s future, would want to try.
So, it’s a prima facie that if the government is doing something, it can not possibly be done by any other entity. Enforcing contracts, the rule of law and maintaining property registries is at least a reasonably viable function of government. Many other things, not so much.
I don’t know that anyone (certainly not anyone here) has argued that a non-governmental entity could not have, for example, funded and done the research that led to the Internet. (Or smart phone cameras – that one was from NASA.) But no rational person would think it likely. And no business, seeing how much Xerox PARC didn’t do for Xerox’s future, would want to try.
Providing these services consumes wealth, not create it.
do doctors, teachers, meat inspectors and soldiers not get paid?
fuck “wealth”.
unless you’re Scrooge McDuck, being safe, smart and healthy beats a big pile of gold coins and day of the week. anyone who says otherwise is lying.
Providing these services consumes wealth, not create it.
do doctors, teachers, meat inspectors and soldiers not get paid?
fuck “wealth”.
unless you’re Scrooge McDuck, being safe, smart and healthy beats a big pile of gold coins and day of the week. anyone who says otherwise is lying.
Capital doesn’t necessarily invent stuff, but inventions alone don’t do anyone any good unless they can be converted into something accessible. That’s what capital does.
that’s what capital enables. capital per se does nothing.
capital formation does not require capitalism, or the promise of multi-million dollar paydays. nor do market economies. nor does innovation and invention, nor does material production at scale.
people do things for lots of reasons. people do really hard and demanding things for lots of reasons. people do really hard and demanding things and never make a dime from it, in more than a few cases. they aren’t saints, they just enjoy doing whatever it is, or maybe it just needs doing. so they do it.
wj’s post is about the concept of enough. the idea that it is harmful to pursue and accumulate wealth beyond the point where it is of any real use to you is not a “progressive left” idea, it is a traditional one. it is in fact ancient. we ignore it to our own harm, personally and as a society.
the world does not need greed, or excessive ambition, to make the wheels turn. the fact that we find it difficult to imagine any alternative speaks volumes, and what it says is not good.
Capital doesn’t necessarily invent stuff, but inventions alone don’t do anyone any good unless they can be converted into something accessible. That’s what capital does.
that’s what capital enables. capital per se does nothing.
capital formation does not require capitalism, or the promise of multi-million dollar paydays. nor do market economies. nor does innovation and invention, nor does material production at scale.
people do things for lots of reasons. people do really hard and demanding things for lots of reasons. people do really hard and demanding things and never make a dime from it, in more than a few cases. they aren’t saints, they just enjoy doing whatever it is, or maybe it just needs doing. so they do it.
wj’s post is about the concept of enough. the idea that it is harmful to pursue and accumulate wealth beyond the point where it is of any real use to you is not a “progressive left” idea, it is a traditional one. it is in fact ancient. we ignore it to our own harm, personally and as a society.
the world does not need greed, or excessive ambition, to make the wheels turn. the fact that we find it difficult to imagine any alternative speaks volumes, and what it says is not good.
Capitalism, in the strict sense, is still a relatively new thing for the human race. People did a lot of sh*t before it came along. Archimedes never got an IPO.
Capitalism, in the strict sense, is still a relatively new thing for the human race. People did a lot of sh*t before it came along. Archimedes never got an IPO.
Ecclesiastes 5:10
Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.
Ecclesiastes 5:10
Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.
Following on these later comments — besides the fact that there’s no proof that we couldn’t have had all these good things by some other mechanism than our current economic system and the driven egos of apex predator billionaires (how many driven egos got destroyed along the way instead of becoming billionaires, I wonder?), there’s also no proof that all these goodies have given us a better world than some alternative pathway might have provided.
We might have been collectively healthier and happier, and who knows, even living without the spectre of climate change, if we had had fewer gadgets and fewer billionaires, but a more equitable distribution of good medical care, decent housing, and quality education.
Following on these later comments — besides the fact that there’s no proof that we couldn’t have had all these good things by some other mechanism than our current economic system and the driven egos of apex predator billionaires (how many driven egos got destroyed along the way instead of becoming billionaires, I wonder?), there’s also no proof that all these goodies have given us a better world than some alternative pathway might have provided.
We might have been collectively healthier and happier, and who knows, even living without the spectre of climate change, if we had had fewer gadgets and fewer billionaires, but a more equitable distribution of good medical care, decent housing, and quality education.
Providing these services consumes wealth, not create it. But increases in people’s health, social capital and safety will allow them to create more wealth than otherwise.
maybe it’s just me, but the second sentence here kind of refutes the first.
FWIW, in my own personal world, government is responsible in part or entirely for gas, electric, water, sewer, roads and highways, schools, libraries, trash pickup and disposal, and a pretty good community center. government also requires people who work on my house, and who sell me groceries and in some cases consumer goods, and who manage my investments, and my bank and the folks who hold my mortgage and issued my credit cards, to observe basic standards of professional competence and responsibility.
in a few years, if the creek don’t rise and the good lord is willing, i’ll probably get my health insurance and a modest retirement stipend from the government.
i’m sure i’m leaving some stuff out.
there’s probably a way for the free market to do all that. in my case, government does it, and it does a pretty damned good job.
i’m fine with it.
seeing how much Xerox PARC didn’t do for Xerox’s future
but look at what PARC did for Microsoft and Apple! 🙂
Providing these services consumes wealth, not create it. But increases in people’s health, social capital and safety will allow them to create more wealth than otherwise.
maybe it’s just me, but the second sentence here kind of refutes the first.
FWIW, in my own personal world, government is responsible in part or entirely for gas, electric, water, sewer, roads and highways, schools, libraries, trash pickup and disposal, and a pretty good community center. government also requires people who work on my house, and who sell me groceries and in some cases consumer goods, and who manage my investments, and my bank and the folks who hold my mortgage and issued my credit cards, to observe basic standards of professional competence and responsibility.
in a few years, if the creek don’t rise and the good lord is willing, i’ll probably get my health insurance and a modest retirement stipend from the government.
i’m sure i’m leaving some stuff out.
there’s probably a way for the free market to do all that. in my case, government does it, and it does a pretty damned good job.
i’m fine with it.
seeing how much Xerox PARC didn’t do for Xerox’s future
but look at what PARC did for Microsoft and Apple! 🙂
…gas, electric, water, sewer, roads and highways, schools, libraries, trash pickup and disposal
we pay to have gas delivered into a tank buried in our yard. water comes out of a hole in our yard. sewer is a different hole in our yard [i sometimes like to think of our house as a very expensive Rube Goldberg device for moving water from one side of our property to the other]. our road is private [which means its in bad shape because nobody wants to spend the money to fix it]. no kids. we pay a guy for trash pickup. none of that’s by choice – we just live too far out of town.
but, not being a libertarian, i’m not seeing how paying our trash guy or gas guy directly creates wealth differently than paying the town trash guys or gas service with tax money does (if they would service our road, which they don’t).
is it because the private trash guy can take the profits and buy gold coins to roll around in, while the town government can only use tax money to provide services (thereby saving taxpayers from having to buy those services directly) ?
in one case, my ‘wealth’ ends up in the gold coins of the trash guy. in the other case, everyone in the town benefits.
and is a healthy and safe and well-maintained town not a kind of wealth? a healthy and safe and well-maintained house is a kind of wealth, after all. a healthy and safe and well-maintained town raises the value of all the property therein by making it more attractive to live in than a neglected, shabby town.
…gas, electric, water, sewer, roads and highways, schools, libraries, trash pickup and disposal
we pay to have gas delivered into a tank buried in our yard. water comes out of a hole in our yard. sewer is a different hole in our yard [i sometimes like to think of our house as a very expensive Rube Goldberg device for moving water from one side of our property to the other]. our road is private [which means its in bad shape because nobody wants to spend the money to fix it]. no kids. we pay a guy for trash pickup. none of that’s by choice – we just live too far out of town.
but, not being a libertarian, i’m not seeing how paying our trash guy or gas guy directly creates wealth differently than paying the town trash guys or gas service with tax money does (if they would service our road, which they don’t).
is it because the private trash guy can take the profits and buy gold coins to roll around in, while the town government can only use tax money to provide services (thereby saving taxpayers from having to buy those services directly) ?
in one case, my ‘wealth’ ends up in the gold coins of the trash guy. in the other case, everyone in the town benefits.
and is a healthy and safe and well-maintained town not a kind of wealth? a healthy and safe and well-maintained house is a kind of wealth, after all. a healthy and safe and well-maintained town raises the value of all the property therein by making it more attractive to live in than a neglected, shabby town.
And when it does create something of value by spending money, would greater value have been created elsewhere by private actors spend the money?
In many cases, at our current equilibrium point (which prima facie consists of governments, especially at local and state levels, starved of spending ability, while the ‘private’ sector is metaphorically rolling in it), I suspect not. It seems quite likely to me that the sorts of projects government does best, or does better at scale (large infrastructure projects, public amenities like parks, health and welfare, education, perhaps even housing) are more productive at the margins right now.
That’s the straight answer, accepting the conventional premise of the question.
But I’d point out that there’s another problem here. This whole question of “what creates greater wealth” is broken. It assumes some kind of correspondence between “greater wealth” and “greater general benefit”. This in turn assumes some mechanism whereby the ‘wealth’ generated by these private investments, ahem, ‘trickles down’ to provide concrete benefits to more than a handful of individuals. These mechanisms, if they ever existed at all, are clearly broken.
And why are they broken? Because of thinking like this:
Providing these services [health, welfare, safety, and education of the People ] consumes wealth, not create it.
Motherfracking, YES they consume wealth, because that is the ultimate point of creating the fracking wealth in the first place. To create concrete benefits for the whole of society. Without that, the wealth is, as I said before, literally useless.
This is what I’m talking about with the whole cult of money business. The point of ‘wealth’ is not simply to create more ‘wealth’ ad infinitum. That’s wealth the parasite, a parasite whose own growth and reproductive cycle has completely colonized and is in critical danger of starving its own host.
Even if a given private investment can nominally produce greater ‘wealth’ than a government one in some instance, it’s pointless without the mechanisms to yoke that engine up to pull some weight. Wealth needs to be a mutualist symbiote, not a parasite. And for that we need things like labor unions, and high progressive taxes funding social services, and limits on the role of money in elections and politics…
You know, all the things we don’t really have anymore, and are told we can’t have because it’s ‘too expensive’ and will interfere with wealth creation(!)
And when it does create something of value by spending money, would greater value have been created elsewhere by private actors spend the money?
In many cases, at our current equilibrium point (which prima facie consists of governments, especially at local and state levels, starved of spending ability, while the ‘private’ sector is metaphorically rolling in it), I suspect not. It seems quite likely to me that the sorts of projects government does best, or does better at scale (large infrastructure projects, public amenities like parks, health and welfare, education, perhaps even housing) are more productive at the margins right now.
That’s the straight answer, accepting the conventional premise of the question.
But I’d point out that there’s another problem here. This whole question of “what creates greater wealth” is broken. It assumes some kind of correspondence between “greater wealth” and “greater general benefit”. This in turn assumes some mechanism whereby the ‘wealth’ generated by these private investments, ahem, ‘trickles down’ to provide concrete benefits to more than a handful of individuals. These mechanisms, if they ever existed at all, are clearly broken.
And why are they broken? Because of thinking like this:
Providing these services [health, welfare, safety, and education of the People ] consumes wealth, not create it.
Motherfracking, YES they consume wealth, because that is the ultimate point of creating the fracking wealth in the first place. To create concrete benefits for the whole of society. Without that, the wealth is, as I said before, literally useless.
This is what I’m talking about with the whole cult of money business. The point of ‘wealth’ is not simply to create more ‘wealth’ ad infinitum. That’s wealth the parasite, a parasite whose own growth and reproductive cycle has completely colonized and is in critical danger of starving its own host.
Even if a given private investment can nominally produce greater ‘wealth’ than a government one in some instance, it’s pointless without the mechanisms to yoke that engine up to pull some weight. Wealth needs to be a mutualist symbiote, not a parasite. And for that we need things like labor unions, and high progressive taxes funding social services, and limits on the role of money in elections and politics…
You know, all the things we don’t really have anymore, and are told we can’t have because it’s ‘too expensive’ and will interfere with wealth creation(!)
Money is a mechanism for the allocation of resources. A good way to evaluate the merits of any particular financial disposition is to ask oneself whether it tends to allocate resources well.
Please tell us the ‘value’ of Wall Street floating bonds to endlessly finance fracking companies that have never, and most likely will never turn a profit.
I’ll have a try at answering that.
Before I start: one can make a good case that current regulations don’t oblige frackers to meet the environmental costs they impose on us. But that’s an argument about regulation, not about financing. I agree with this argument, but it’s right that financiers leave regulation to government.
Now, if we never invested in projects which are unlikely to make a profit, we wouldn’t invest in much. Only a small proportion of tech start-ups, or candidate drugs, or mining ventures, ever make a profit. It’s not the likelihood of profit that matters, it’s the expected profit – we care about the mean not the median of the distribution. (Equity and bonds are not the same in this respect, but I won’t go into that in this already long post.)
So how do we decide which projects to invest in? By letting people decide where to put their own money. If Wall Street is floating fracking bonds, it’s because investors are willing to buy them. And if investors are willing to buy them, it’s because they think the interest rate offered is sufficient to compensate for the chance of default – they think the company’s prospects are good enough.
The theory is that it’s better to trust the judgement of an investor with skin in the game than to rely on internet commentators or government agents. The history of communist economies suggests that the theory, as it applies to government agents, is sound.
Money is a mechanism for the allocation of resources. A good way to evaluate the merits of any particular financial disposition is to ask oneself whether it tends to allocate resources well.
Please tell us the ‘value’ of Wall Street floating bonds to endlessly finance fracking companies that have never, and most likely will never turn a profit.
I’ll have a try at answering that.
Before I start: one can make a good case that current regulations don’t oblige frackers to meet the environmental costs they impose on us. But that’s an argument about regulation, not about financing. I agree with this argument, but it’s right that financiers leave regulation to government.
Now, if we never invested in projects which are unlikely to make a profit, we wouldn’t invest in much. Only a small proportion of tech start-ups, or candidate drugs, or mining ventures, ever make a profit. It’s not the likelihood of profit that matters, it’s the expected profit – we care about the mean not the median of the distribution. (Equity and bonds are not the same in this respect, but I won’t go into that in this already long post.)
So how do we decide which projects to invest in? By letting people decide where to put their own money. If Wall Street is floating fracking bonds, it’s because investors are willing to buy them. And if investors are willing to buy them, it’s because they think the interest rate offered is sufficient to compensate for the chance of default – they think the company’s prospects are good enough.
The theory is that it’s better to trust the judgement of an investor with skin in the game than to rely on internet commentators or government agents. The history of communist economies suggests that the theory, as it applies to government agents, is sound.
but, not being a libertarian, i’m not seeing how paying our trash guy or gas guy directly creates wealth differently than paying the town trash guys or gas service with tax money does (if they would service our road, which they don’t).
Where I live the difference is this: the trash guy who works fo rhe town has a living wage and health benefits and protection from on the job injury.He is paying taxes and pays into SS. His job is steady and he probably has a retirement program In fact he has one of the very few middle class jobs left.He has disposable income to dispose of at local businesses.
The other trash guy is a free lancer who never knows how many jobs has a fluctuating income he will have has no insurance, has no retirement, has no access to coverage for on the job injuries, and is probably not paying taxes. And is probably cobbling together an existence based on scrambling around doing all sorts of off the books stuff for cash or trade.
So one is part of an interconnected community system that spreads money around and gives support to everyone, and the other is on his own and, apart from picking up your trash and spending money in local stores, is not contributing much to the community.
I doubt is either is producing much wealth, but one is part of a community that has some cohesiveness and the other is part of a community that is coming unravelled toward Social darwinism
but, not being a libertarian, i’m not seeing how paying our trash guy or gas guy directly creates wealth differently than paying the town trash guys or gas service with tax money does (if they would service our road, which they don’t).
Where I live the difference is this: the trash guy who works fo rhe town has a living wage and health benefits and protection from on the job injury.He is paying taxes and pays into SS. His job is steady and he probably has a retirement program In fact he has one of the very few middle class jobs left.He has disposable income to dispose of at local businesses.
The other trash guy is a free lancer who never knows how many jobs has a fluctuating income he will have has no insurance, has no retirement, has no access to coverage for on the job injuries, and is probably not paying taxes. And is probably cobbling together an existence based on scrambling around doing all sorts of off the books stuff for cash or trade.
So one is part of an interconnected community system that spreads money around and gives support to everyone, and the other is on his own and, apart from picking up your trash and spending money in local stores, is not contributing much to the community.
I doubt is either is producing much wealth, but one is part of a community that has some cohesiveness and the other is part of a community that is coming unravelled toward Social darwinism
it’s right that financiers leave regulation to government.
I’d quibble with that, a little.
I think that’s tantamount to saying that the only social responsibility an investor has is to make money. I don’t think that’s true, or should be true, and to the extent that we almost continuously find ourselves excusing odious, short-sighted behavior that isn’t technically illegal yet with a collective shrug of our shoulders, ‘well, what can you expect, their only responsibility is to make money’, well, that’s a problem. Cult of money again.
The history of communist economies suggests that the theory, as it applies to government agents, is sound.
I’d argue that it applies not just to government agents. There’s not actually anything special about working for a government, and much of the problems that arguably apply to ‘government agents’ apply equally to corporate managers who have, for whatever reason, insufficient interest in, or accountability for, their actions.
(It’s been observed with some justice that corporations are islands of planned economy in a sea of free enterprise. They are in many ways anathema to the genuine free enterprise the econ textbooks talk about, and to the extent that we have a greater and greater concentration of wealth and power in a smaller and smaller set of corporations and banks, I’d argue that our economy grows rather closer in resemblance to a Soviet one, not further.)
it’s right that financiers leave regulation to government.
I’d quibble with that, a little.
I think that’s tantamount to saying that the only social responsibility an investor has is to make money. I don’t think that’s true, or should be true, and to the extent that we almost continuously find ourselves excusing odious, short-sighted behavior that isn’t technically illegal yet with a collective shrug of our shoulders, ‘well, what can you expect, their only responsibility is to make money’, well, that’s a problem. Cult of money again.
The history of communist economies suggests that the theory, as it applies to government agents, is sound.
I’d argue that it applies not just to government agents. There’s not actually anything special about working for a government, and much of the problems that arguably apply to ‘government agents’ apply equally to corporate managers who have, for whatever reason, insufficient interest in, or accountability for, their actions.
(It’s been observed with some justice that corporations are islands of planned economy in a sea of free enterprise. They are in many ways anathema to the genuine free enterprise the econ textbooks talk about, and to the extent that we have a greater and greater concentration of wealth and power in a smaller and smaller set of corporations and banks, I’d argue that our economy grows rather closer in resemblance to a Soviet one, not further.)
They are in many ways anathema to the genuine free enterprise the econ textbooks talk about…
Fully competitive environments, where information is perfect and complete?
A good way to evaluate the merits of any particular financial disposition is to ask oneself whether it tends to allocate resources well.
Is this really how you think it works (more than for some value of “sometimes”)? Do you equate money with resources, as in, “where should I put my money to get the best return in a given period of time?” being the same as something like, “these raw materials and human resources would be best put to use to make X because it will create the most value for mankind”?
They are in many ways anathema to the genuine free enterprise the econ textbooks talk about…
Fully competitive environments, where information is perfect and complete?
A good way to evaluate the merits of any particular financial disposition is to ask oneself whether it tends to allocate resources well.
Is this really how you think it works (more than for some value of “sometimes”)? Do you equate money with resources, as in, “where should I put my money to get the best return in a given period of time?” being the same as something like, “these raw materials and human resources would be best put to use to make X because it will create the most value for mankind”?
All that said, who here (other than maybe bob mcmanus) is suggesting that we eliminate private investment? Is someone here secretly yearning for a government-made iPod?
All that said, who here (other than maybe bob mcmanus) is suggesting that we eliminate private investment? Is someone here secretly yearning for a government-made iPod?
On the flip side, Pro Bono, are you suggesting, for example, that I-95 shouldn’t have been built, and that it should have been left to private actors to figure out how to move people and goods up and down the East Coast? (I’m guessing not.)
On the flip side, Pro Bono, are you suggesting, for example, that I-95 shouldn’t have been built, and that it should have been left to private actors to figure out how to move people and goods up and down the East Coast? (I’m guessing not.)
Fully competitive environments, where information is perfect and complete?
Well, indeed.
On a more practical level, the example given by one of my professors back in the day was a street in the small Turkish city he’d grown up in. It was the street of shoe makers. Dozens or hundreds of small shops, with single proprietors, all making more or less the same shoes from the same materials, in the same way, for the same price.
One can probably point out some aspects of that that make it less than perfectly free or competitive in practice (social factors come to mind), but it’s probably still as good an example of actual free enterprise as the real world has to offer.
The point being that when we leave that world behind for the world of Ford and Merck and Apple, we’re necessarily already leaving ‘free markets’ behind to a certain degree. It may well be — per McKinneyTx — that these latter megaventures are indispensable to our way of life, but free enterprise they are not.
Fully competitive environments, where information is perfect and complete?
Well, indeed.
On a more practical level, the example given by one of my professors back in the day was a street in the small Turkish city he’d grown up in. It was the street of shoe makers. Dozens or hundreds of small shops, with single proprietors, all making more or less the same shoes from the same materials, in the same way, for the same price.
One can probably point out some aspects of that that make it less than perfectly free or competitive in practice (social factors come to mind), but it’s probably still as good an example of actual free enterprise as the real world has to offer.
The point being that when we leave that world behind for the world of Ford and Merck and Apple, we’re necessarily already leaving ‘free markets’ behind to a certain degree. It may well be — per McKinneyTx — that these latter megaventures are indispensable to our way of life, but free enterprise they are not.
Check out the earlier sections of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy for an eye-opening account of cotton-growers’ insulation from labor risk, weather risk, market fluctuation risk, you name it — all with the intertwined collaboration of … government.
Check out the earlier sections of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy for an eye-opening account of cotton-growers’ insulation from labor risk, weather risk, market fluctuation risk, you name it — all with the intertwined collaboration of … government.
Ok, this will be in two installments because I can’t switch from one tranche to the other without losing my awesome prose.
If you are one of the fat-dumb-and-happy 9.9%, e.g. a successful lawyer or a dedicated orthopedic surgeon, you can easily fool yourself into thinking that you are not “working class”. Even though “working” is what you do to earn your comfortable living, you can fall into the error of identifying with the 0.1% despite the fact that they can buy or sell you 10-100 times over. You might even imagine that any discussion of “enough” is a commie plot against you.
I’d never thought about it like this. Thanks for the epiphany. I’ll register as a Democrat later today.
What the hell is “excess” money? Is it money over and above what is “enough”?
Anyway, is there a difference between “capital” and concentrated “capital”. If working people like janitors, lettuce pickers, lawyers and surgeons (with their subjective but finite notions of “enough”) could save up some money, would that money NOT be “capital” available to be pooled into promising enterprises?
Here is the concept: I pick for myself how much of what I make is ‘enough’ for my needs and the excess is capital available for investment. Think of the accounting term “capital account”. Anyone who is able to manage their affairs so as to create a personal surplus has capital and is free to risk/invest as they see fit. Unless the rest of us, per the topic of this thread, decide that person has too much. Because we find “too much” offensive.
1. Virtually every device and medicine used in modern medicine is the product of free enterprise and the profit motive.
It’s good that you’ve now limited it to 90% and my prostate cancer treatment. I still think it is debatable, but it is always good to see you soften a claim. I just wish you could maybe start off with the softer version rather than try to draw people out with the outrageous statement and then backtrack. As everyone’s mother used to say, it’s great fun until someone gets an eye poked out…
By all means, debate me. Substantively. I’m up for it. Also, I stand by both statements. Neither statement is horseshit and I wasn’t lying (Russell).
There’s a certain sort of person who always cries ‘jealousy’ whenever anyone dares to suggest that maybe the ultra rich could afford to pay a little more taxes or whatever, but that’s obviously a red herring of an argument (if not simply projection…). I’m sure you’d never take that tack!
Actually, as Ugh noted, WJ’s proposal was ‘near 100%’. The proposal is essentially confiscation beyond a certain point. To repeat what I’ve said many times when it comes to tax policy, I’m fine with a 40% marginal tax rate and I’m voting with my money not someone else’s.
Imagine businessperson A who builds an enterprise around a product they know and care about. Who makes sure that everything they sell is of a high quality, that their customers are happy, that their employees are well-compensated and leave work with a sense of accomplishment.
Well, businessperson A is obviously an idiot.
Business Person A is the rule, in my experience, not the exception. Every small business owner I know who follows this model does well. including me FWIW. Consider that your construct might be a matter of ideology and preconceived notions overriding actual reality.
imagine our society and economy is like a pizza pan with a bunch of little marbles or ball bearings happily rolling around on it. We roll and bounce around in our little circles, going about our business. Then along comes a smart ass marble who figures out how to grow bigger. Like, exponentially bigger. Pretty soon, we’re not all just rolling around in our own little way — we’re all stuck in one corner of the sheet, involuntarily nuzzled up against Mr. Fat Marble and the giant dent he’s pressing into the pan.
The pizza you describe is actually a marble and it’s quite large and holds over 7 billion people. Can you cite a specific example of someone rich pushing others out of the way, if that is what you are contending happens?
Redistributing money from someone who literally has more than they can put to any practical use can nevertheless be great help in providing important things for people who have less, and thus make the average person better off (see the above about how on average, Americans have not been getting better off – and very possibly have been going backwards – for several decades).
This was, I think, the main thrust of the OP. And it’s an extremely salient point.
Who gets to decide how much is too much? How long do you think the uber rich will continue in that fashion if you take their money away from them? This is a one shot deal–confiscate and then see what’s left next time.
Can the government create a net positive benefit by taking the money away from its owners instead of leaving it in the private sector?
Sure. It happens all the time. A big chunk of our best medical and tech stuff is the byproduct of defense and other spending. Mostly defense, though. As others have noted, essential infrastructure provides the common base for commerce and basic necessities, e.g. water. I’m a big fan of peace and think that you get that by deterrence rather than unilateral disarmament, so I’m a fan of a stout national defense.
Let me try to make a point here: you need capital to start a business, build a factory, what have you. Pretty much every material thing we touch in our lives was build/produced by someone intending to make a profit. Capping income, capping wealth has the effect of capping the economy. Which doesn’t mean that there isn’t a huge pile of essential activities that can only be done collectively. Which actually, is not the point I’m trying to discuss, which is WJ’s ultimate point of virtual confiscation beyond a certain level of attainment.
“How gov’t spends our money” is a different topic than “McKinney makes too much money, cap him at X.” I’m focused on the latter proposition and I’m using my name tongue in cheek for those who sometimes take me literally.
I ask one and only one thing of the commentariat: do not mischaracterize things I say to make your own points.
stand on your own two feet, please.
your claim was not limited to “the equipment for LJ’s prostate cancer treatment”, it extended to virtually all medical advances.
which was, and is, horseshit.
tell lies if you like, don’t enlist me in them.
Well, Russell, not really. In the original post, I said “virtually all devices and medicines” and in this post I said “90% of all equipment” and then I went on to say that pretty much anything tangible that we buy was produced by the private sector, so I’m pretty sure I’m saying almost the same thing substantively in both instances and I’m quite sure I’m correct, but you or LJ are free to point out a medicine or a device or a piece of equipment in use anywhere in the US or Japan to treat any condition including prostate cancer that is not produced in the private sector. In fact, I’d be hugely impressed if you or LJ could identify a single tangible item used in the US that isn’t from the private sector (I don’t know enough about Japan to include it in this challenge). I grant and always have granted that innovation comes from a variety of quarters.
Hey, where did Lockheed get all this money, anyway?
This is a good example of my point above. However, it raises its own set of issues, e.g. crony capitalism, rent seeking, winner-picking etc, but that is tangential to WJ’s post IMO.
i frankly don’t give a crap how much people make. live your life. i do care that so much of our public policy is focused on enabling the accumulation of ridiculous amounts of money, and i do care that people with great wealth are in many ways “more equal” than the rest of us in areas of public life.
BobbyP and you both make this point. BP makes it all the time. What policies are y’all talking about? Could someone do a post that addresses some of the leading offenders? I’d like to have that conversation.
and for what it’s worth, capitalism, with it’s insistence that capital be a privileged factor of production, is not a requirement for a market economy, nor for that matter for capital formation.
I’m not sure what this means. You either have capital or you don’t. If you don’t, you don’t have what you need to buy the equipment or whatever to start a business. If it is privilege to be allowed to keep what you make, then I suppose I’m arguing for privilege. Seems more like a right to me.
Ok, this will be in two installments because I can’t switch from one tranche to the other without losing my awesome prose.
If you are one of the fat-dumb-and-happy 9.9%, e.g. a successful lawyer or a dedicated orthopedic surgeon, you can easily fool yourself into thinking that you are not “working class”. Even though “working” is what you do to earn your comfortable living, you can fall into the error of identifying with the 0.1% despite the fact that they can buy or sell you 10-100 times over. You might even imagine that any discussion of “enough” is a commie plot against you.
I’d never thought about it like this. Thanks for the epiphany. I’ll register as a Democrat later today.
What the hell is “excess” money? Is it money over and above what is “enough”?
Anyway, is there a difference between “capital” and concentrated “capital”. If working people like janitors, lettuce pickers, lawyers and surgeons (with their subjective but finite notions of “enough”) could save up some money, would that money NOT be “capital” available to be pooled into promising enterprises?
Here is the concept: I pick for myself how much of what I make is ‘enough’ for my needs and the excess is capital available for investment. Think of the accounting term “capital account”. Anyone who is able to manage their affairs so as to create a personal surplus has capital and is free to risk/invest as they see fit. Unless the rest of us, per the topic of this thread, decide that person has too much. Because we find “too much” offensive.
1. Virtually every device and medicine used in modern medicine is the product of free enterprise and the profit motive.
It’s good that you’ve now limited it to 90% and my prostate cancer treatment. I still think it is debatable, but it is always good to see you soften a claim. I just wish you could maybe start off with the softer version rather than try to draw people out with the outrageous statement and then backtrack. As everyone’s mother used to say, it’s great fun until someone gets an eye poked out…
By all means, debate me. Substantively. I’m up for it. Also, I stand by both statements. Neither statement is horseshit and I wasn’t lying (Russell).
There’s a certain sort of person who always cries ‘jealousy’ whenever anyone dares to suggest that maybe the ultra rich could afford to pay a little more taxes or whatever, but that’s obviously a red herring of an argument (if not simply projection…). I’m sure you’d never take that tack!
Actually, as Ugh noted, WJ’s proposal was ‘near 100%’. The proposal is essentially confiscation beyond a certain point. To repeat what I’ve said many times when it comes to tax policy, I’m fine with a 40% marginal tax rate and I’m voting with my money not someone else’s.
Imagine businessperson A who builds an enterprise around a product they know and care about. Who makes sure that everything they sell is of a high quality, that their customers are happy, that their employees are well-compensated and leave work with a sense of accomplishment.
Well, businessperson A is obviously an idiot.
Business Person A is the rule, in my experience, not the exception. Every small business owner I know who follows this model does well. including me FWIW. Consider that your construct might be a matter of ideology and preconceived notions overriding actual reality.
imagine our society and economy is like a pizza pan with a bunch of little marbles or ball bearings happily rolling around on it. We roll and bounce around in our little circles, going about our business. Then along comes a smart ass marble who figures out how to grow bigger. Like, exponentially bigger. Pretty soon, we’re not all just rolling around in our own little way — we’re all stuck in one corner of the sheet, involuntarily nuzzled up against Mr. Fat Marble and the giant dent he’s pressing into the pan.
The pizza you describe is actually a marble and it’s quite large and holds over 7 billion people. Can you cite a specific example of someone rich pushing others out of the way, if that is what you are contending happens?
Redistributing money from someone who literally has more than they can put to any practical use can nevertheless be great help in providing important things for people who have less, and thus make the average person better off (see the above about how on average, Americans have not been getting better off – and very possibly have been going backwards – for several decades).
This was, I think, the main thrust of the OP. And it’s an extremely salient point.
Who gets to decide how much is too much? How long do you think the uber rich will continue in that fashion if you take their money away from them? This is a one shot deal–confiscate and then see what’s left next time.
Can the government create a net positive benefit by taking the money away from its owners instead of leaving it in the private sector?
Sure. It happens all the time. A big chunk of our best medical and tech stuff is the byproduct of defense and other spending. Mostly defense, though. As others have noted, essential infrastructure provides the common base for commerce and basic necessities, e.g. water. I’m a big fan of peace and think that you get that by deterrence rather than unilateral disarmament, so I’m a fan of a stout national defense.
Let me try to make a point here: you need capital to start a business, build a factory, what have you. Pretty much every material thing we touch in our lives was build/produced by someone intending to make a profit. Capping income, capping wealth has the effect of capping the economy. Which doesn’t mean that there isn’t a huge pile of essential activities that can only be done collectively. Which actually, is not the point I’m trying to discuss, which is WJ’s ultimate point of virtual confiscation beyond a certain level of attainment.
“How gov’t spends our money” is a different topic than “McKinney makes too much money, cap him at X.” I’m focused on the latter proposition and I’m using my name tongue in cheek for those who sometimes take me literally.
I ask one and only one thing of the commentariat: do not mischaracterize things I say to make your own points.
stand on your own two feet, please.
your claim was not limited to “the equipment for LJ’s prostate cancer treatment”, it extended to virtually all medical advances.
which was, and is, horseshit.
tell lies if you like, don’t enlist me in them.
Well, Russell, not really. In the original post, I said “virtually all devices and medicines” and in this post I said “90% of all equipment” and then I went on to say that pretty much anything tangible that we buy was produced by the private sector, so I’m pretty sure I’m saying almost the same thing substantively in both instances and I’m quite sure I’m correct, but you or LJ are free to point out a medicine or a device or a piece of equipment in use anywhere in the US or Japan to treat any condition including prostate cancer that is not produced in the private sector. In fact, I’d be hugely impressed if you or LJ could identify a single tangible item used in the US that isn’t from the private sector (I don’t know enough about Japan to include it in this challenge). I grant and always have granted that innovation comes from a variety of quarters.
Hey, where did Lockheed get all this money, anyway?
This is a good example of my point above. However, it raises its own set of issues, e.g. crony capitalism, rent seeking, winner-picking etc, but that is tangential to WJ’s post IMO.
i frankly don’t give a crap how much people make. live your life. i do care that so much of our public policy is focused on enabling the accumulation of ridiculous amounts of money, and i do care that people with great wealth are in many ways “more equal” than the rest of us in areas of public life.
BobbyP and you both make this point. BP makes it all the time. What policies are y’all talking about? Could someone do a post that addresses some of the leading offenders? I’d like to have that conversation.
and for what it’s worth, capitalism, with it’s insistence that capital be a privileged factor of production, is not a requirement for a market economy, nor for that matter for capital formation.
I’m not sure what this means. You either have capital or you don’t. If you don’t, you don’t have what you need to buy the equipment or whatever to start a business. If it is privilege to be allowed to keep what you make, then I suppose I’m arguing for privilege. Seems more like a right to me.
I’ve always found it amusing when people use one hand to point a disapproving finger at anyone on welfare while using the other hand to take a government price support check.
I’ve always found it amusing when people use one hand to point a disapproving finger at anyone on welfare while using the other hand to take a government price support check.
Unless the rest of us, per the topic of this thread, decide that person has too much. Because we find “too much” offensive.
I don’t think “offensive” is quite the right word. On a societal level, since it’s not about any given person, “too much” is more about dysfunction. It can also be absurd at some point, on a personal level.
I’d also note that “the rest of us” decide all sorts of things. I’d prefer it not to be in the way the French Revolution went, just for one example. Heads in baskets are more offensive than people having “too much” wealth.
SAVE THE RICH!!!
Unless the rest of us, per the topic of this thread, decide that person has too much. Because we find “too much” offensive.
I don’t think “offensive” is quite the right word. On a societal level, since it’s not about any given person, “too much” is more about dysfunction. It can also be absurd at some point, on a personal level.
I’d also note that “the rest of us” decide all sorts of things. I’d prefer it not to be in the way the French Revolution went, just for one example. Heads in baskets are more offensive than people having “too much” wealth.
SAVE THE RICH!!!
I’ve always found it amusing when people use one hand to point a disapproving finger at anyone on welfare while using the other hand to take a government price support check.
self-reliant farmers are self-reliant!
Who gets to decide how much is too much?
voters do.
I’ve always found it amusing when people use one hand to point a disapproving finger at anyone on welfare while using the other hand to take a government price support check.
self-reliant farmers are self-reliant!
Who gets to decide how much is too much?
voters do.
It’s not like we didn’t have a 90% marginal rate in the past – with a robust economy. Yes, very few people paid the top rate. Isn’t that what you’d expect? Why didn’t the economy fall to pieces?
It’s not like we didn’t have a 90% marginal rate in the past – with a robust economy. Yes, very few people paid the top rate. Isn’t that what you’d expect? Why didn’t the economy fall to pieces?
What policies are y’all talking about?
Between euphoric bouts of dreaming of the abolition of private property and the advent of pure communism, I am willing to abide by a market system that is more or less fair for all, curbs and/or rectifies market failures (of which there are many), and does not allow private actors to burden others with the costs of market externalities.
For an introductory primer on public policies that promote wealth inequality, try reading Dean Baker’s rigged. It’s free. No wealth required.
What policies are y’all talking about?
Between euphoric bouts of dreaming of the abolition of private property and the advent of pure communism, I am willing to abide by a market system that is more or less fair for all, curbs and/or rectifies market failures (of which there are many), and does not allow private actors to burden others with the costs of market externalities.
For an introductory primer on public policies that promote wealth inequality, try reading Dean Baker’s rigged. It’s free. No wealth required.
I’m not sure what this means.
Well, you either have workers or you don’t.
I’m not sure what this means.
Well, you either have workers or you don’t.
I grant and always have granted that innovation comes from a variety of quarters.
I rest my case.
What policies are y’all talking about?
Capital gains taxed at about half the rate of earned income.
If a business folds and it owes money to its employees, and also owes money to creditors, creditors get paid, employees pound sand.
Right off the top of my head.
I’m not sure what this means.
It means what it says.
Capitalism is not the only economic form that supports capital formation and a market economy.
People do things other ways. Those ways work, too.
I am neither for nor against capitalism. I am against insisting that it is the only way to do things, or the best way to do things. I am very much against assuming that every good thing is the product of capitalism.
It’s good for some things, less good for others. We get to choose how we want to live.
Who gets to decide how much is too much?
Who gets to decide any of this stuff?
Who decided that 39.6% was the magical right number for a top marginal rate, and not 70%?
Who decided that capital gains should be taxed at half the rate of earned income?
The way we do it here is, we vote, and policy flows from that.
I grant and always have granted that innovation comes from a variety of quarters.
I rest my case.
What policies are y’all talking about?
Capital gains taxed at about half the rate of earned income.
If a business folds and it owes money to its employees, and also owes money to creditors, creditors get paid, employees pound sand.
Right off the top of my head.
I’m not sure what this means.
It means what it says.
Capitalism is not the only economic form that supports capital formation and a market economy.
People do things other ways. Those ways work, too.
I am neither for nor against capitalism. I am against insisting that it is the only way to do things, or the best way to do things. I am very much against assuming that every good thing is the product of capitalism.
It’s good for some things, less good for others. We get to choose how we want to live.
Who gets to decide how much is too much?
Who gets to decide any of this stuff?
Who decided that 39.6% was the magical right number for a top marginal rate, and not 70%?
Who decided that capital gains should be taxed at half the rate of earned income?
The way we do it here is, we vote, and policy flows from that.
Government is largely a consumer of wealth, not a creator. And when it does create something of value by spending money, would greater value have been created elsewhere by private actors spend the money?
Another interesting topic for a separate post and discussion. I disagree, but to some extent it’s a matter of semantics. Government is largely a reallocator of wealth, mostly in the form of transfer payments, which I categorize differently from services, e.g. national defense, fire department, police and other collective endeavors that could exist separately from welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
Providing these services consumes wealth, not create it. But increases in people’s health, social capital and safety will allow them to create more wealth than otherwise.
There is plenty of private sector activity generated by these expenditures. It isn’t as if a dollar spent on Medicare disappears after it goes to a doctor or a hospital.
that’s what capital enables. capital per se does nothing.
“Enabling” is not “nothing”.
capital formation does not require capitalism, or the promise of multi-million dollar paydays. nor do market economies. nor does innovation and invention, nor does material production at scale.
I’m not sure this statement can be supported empirically if it even makes sense. Capital formation is capitalism. Market economies are capitalism. Innovation and invention are the end product of market needs and human creativity. But, whatever.
people do things for lots of reasons. people do really hard and demanding things for lots of reasons. people do really hard and demanding things and never make a dime from it, in more than a few cases. they aren’t saints, they just enjoy doing whatever it is, or maybe it just needs doing. so they do it.
wj’s post is about the concept of enough. the idea that it is harmful to pursue and accumulate wealth beyond the point where it is of any real use to you is not a “progressive left” idea, it is a traditional one. it is in fact ancient. we ignore it to our own harm, personally and as a society.
the world does not need greed, or excessive ambition, to make the wheels turn. the fact that we find it difficult to imagine any alternative speaks volumes, and what it says is not good.
Everything you say is true. Here is some more true stuff: people ought to be nice to each other. People ought help other people. People shouldn’t gossip about others. People shouldn’t manipulate other people. People shouldn’t lie.
Here are some things that some people think are good ideas and others don’t: people should not have sexual intercourse prior to marriage; people should only have sexual intercourse with people they love and intend to marry; people should not offend other people; people should respect other people’s opinions.
And so on and so on. You don’t like excessive accumulation of wealth and think it’s unhealthy, etc. I disapprove of vegetarians*. But, regardless of what you like and what I like, why should our views be foisted on someone else?
Motherfracking, YES they consume wealth, because that is the ultimate point of creating the fracking wealth in the first place. To create concrete benefits for the whole of society. Without that, the wealth is, as I said before, literally useless.
This is what I’m talking about with the whole cult of money business. The point of ‘wealth’ is not simply to create more ‘wealth’ ad infinitum. That’s wealth the parasite, a parasite whose own growth and reproductive cycle has completely colonized and is in critical danger of starving its own host.
Even if a given private investment can nominally produce greater ‘wealth’ than a government one in some instance, it’s pointless without the mechanisms to yoke that engine up to pull some weight. Wealth needs to be a mutualist symbiote, not a parasite. And for that we need things like labor unions, and high progressive taxes funding social services, and limits on the role of money in elections and politics…
You know, all the things we don’t really have anymore, and are told we can’t have because it’s ‘too expensive’ and will interfere with wealth creation(!)
Ok, this is pretty theoretical. Wealth is the end product of getting more than you spend. That’s all it is. I’m in the school that thinks, beyond a certain point, it’s hubris or excessive or whatever, to keep trying to make more. However, my “certain point” and many others’ is likely different. In fact, absent a minor economic miracle, I will likely fall far short of that “certain point” where I would say adios for all time to working for a living. Wealth isn’t supposed to do anything. The real argument here is for wealth redistribution/reallocation. Which is also a topic worthy of its own post.
Where I live the difference is this: the trash guy who works fo rhe town has a living wage and health benefits and protection from on the job injury.He is paying taxes and pays into SS. His job is steady and he probably has a retirement program In fact he has one of the very few middle class jobs left.He has disposable income to dispose of at local businesses.
If the trash guy manages his/her affairs so as to have a bit left over, or if he/she works a second job or marries someone who is employed and can create a surplus, that surplus is wealth. Of if he/she uses his/her pay to go to night school and then winds up being a CPA or getting a better job that allows for a surplus at some point, wealth is again created. All good.
The point being that when we leave that world behind for the world of Ford and Merck and Apple, we’re necessarily already leaving ‘free markets’ behind to a certain degree. It may well be — per McKinneyTx — that these latter megaventures are indispensable to our way of life, but free enterprise they are not.
Sure they are. There is plenty of competition. And, for good or not, there are some enterprises that have to be huge in order to get stuff we really need, like bulldozers and tractors and 737’s and stuff like that.
*Actually, I don’t disapprove of vegetarians. More tongue in cheek.
Government is largely a consumer of wealth, not a creator. And when it does create something of value by spending money, would greater value have been created elsewhere by private actors spend the money?
Another interesting topic for a separate post and discussion. I disagree, but to some extent it’s a matter of semantics. Government is largely a reallocator of wealth, mostly in the form of transfer payments, which I categorize differently from services, e.g. national defense, fire department, police and other collective endeavors that could exist separately from welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
Providing these services consumes wealth, not create it. But increases in people’s health, social capital and safety will allow them to create more wealth than otherwise.
There is plenty of private sector activity generated by these expenditures. It isn’t as if a dollar spent on Medicare disappears after it goes to a doctor or a hospital.
that’s what capital enables. capital per se does nothing.
“Enabling” is not “nothing”.
capital formation does not require capitalism, or the promise of multi-million dollar paydays. nor do market economies. nor does innovation and invention, nor does material production at scale.
I’m not sure this statement can be supported empirically if it even makes sense. Capital formation is capitalism. Market economies are capitalism. Innovation and invention are the end product of market needs and human creativity. But, whatever.
people do things for lots of reasons. people do really hard and demanding things for lots of reasons. people do really hard and demanding things and never make a dime from it, in more than a few cases. they aren’t saints, they just enjoy doing whatever it is, or maybe it just needs doing. so they do it.
wj’s post is about the concept of enough. the idea that it is harmful to pursue and accumulate wealth beyond the point where it is of any real use to you is not a “progressive left” idea, it is a traditional one. it is in fact ancient. we ignore it to our own harm, personally and as a society.
the world does not need greed, or excessive ambition, to make the wheels turn. the fact that we find it difficult to imagine any alternative speaks volumes, and what it says is not good.
Everything you say is true. Here is some more true stuff: people ought to be nice to each other. People ought help other people. People shouldn’t gossip about others. People shouldn’t manipulate other people. People shouldn’t lie.
Here are some things that some people think are good ideas and others don’t: people should not have sexual intercourse prior to marriage; people should only have sexual intercourse with people they love and intend to marry; people should not offend other people; people should respect other people’s opinions.
And so on and so on. You don’t like excessive accumulation of wealth and think it’s unhealthy, etc. I disapprove of vegetarians*. But, regardless of what you like and what I like, why should our views be foisted on someone else?
Motherfracking, YES they consume wealth, because that is the ultimate point of creating the fracking wealth in the first place. To create concrete benefits for the whole of society. Without that, the wealth is, as I said before, literally useless.
This is what I’m talking about with the whole cult of money business. The point of ‘wealth’ is not simply to create more ‘wealth’ ad infinitum. That’s wealth the parasite, a parasite whose own growth and reproductive cycle has completely colonized and is in critical danger of starving its own host.
Even if a given private investment can nominally produce greater ‘wealth’ than a government one in some instance, it’s pointless without the mechanisms to yoke that engine up to pull some weight. Wealth needs to be a mutualist symbiote, not a parasite. And for that we need things like labor unions, and high progressive taxes funding social services, and limits on the role of money in elections and politics…
You know, all the things we don’t really have anymore, and are told we can’t have because it’s ‘too expensive’ and will interfere with wealth creation(!)
Ok, this is pretty theoretical. Wealth is the end product of getting more than you spend. That’s all it is. I’m in the school that thinks, beyond a certain point, it’s hubris or excessive or whatever, to keep trying to make more. However, my “certain point” and many others’ is likely different. In fact, absent a minor economic miracle, I will likely fall far short of that “certain point” where I would say adios for all time to working for a living. Wealth isn’t supposed to do anything. The real argument here is for wealth redistribution/reallocation. Which is also a topic worthy of its own post.
Where I live the difference is this: the trash guy who works fo rhe town has a living wage and health benefits and protection from on the job injury.He is paying taxes and pays into SS. His job is steady and he probably has a retirement program In fact he has one of the very few middle class jobs left.He has disposable income to dispose of at local businesses.
If the trash guy manages his/her affairs so as to have a bit left over, or if he/she works a second job or marries someone who is employed and can create a surplus, that surplus is wealth. Of if he/she uses his/her pay to go to night school and then winds up being a CPA or getting a better job that allows for a surplus at some point, wealth is again created. All good.
The point being that when we leave that world behind for the world of Ford and Merck and Apple, we’re necessarily already leaving ‘free markets’ behind to a certain degree. It may well be — per McKinneyTx — that these latter megaventures are indispensable to our way of life, but free enterprise they are not.
Sure they are. There is plenty of competition. And, for good or not, there are some enterprises that have to be huge in order to get stuff we really need, like bulldozers and tractors and 737’s and stuff like that.
*Actually, I don’t disapprove of vegetarians. More tongue in cheek.
If I live next to a beautiful park, do I have more wealth than someone who lives next to a garbage dump, all other things being equal?
If I live next to a beautiful park, do I have more wealth than someone who lives next to a garbage dump, all other things being equal?
Who gets to decide how much is too much?
voters do.
So, two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for lunch.
Who gets to decide how much is too much?
voters do.
So, two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for lunch.
Who gets to decide how much is too much?
voters do.
Can voters decide that women can’t have abortions? That black people can’t vote?
It’s not like we didn’t have a 90% marginal rate in the past – with a robust economy. Yes, very few people paid the top rate. Isn’t that what you’d expect? Why didn’t the economy fall to pieces?
Actually, those rates were put into effect during the Depression and they did not stimulate a vibrant economy. WWII stimulated a vibrant economy. When the war ended, only one country was left with an industrial base of any real consequence and that was us. Being the only game in town beats the system by definition. Now, we have to compete. So, things are different.
Capital gains taxed at about half the rate of earned income.
In what way does this favor any one person over another? Anyone who buys stock or any other capital asset and holds it for a year and a day gets the same tax treatment.
If a business folds and it owes money to its employees, and also owes money to creditors, creditors get paid, employees pound sand.
This benefits the wealthy in what way, assuming it’s even correct?
Who gets to decide how much is too much?
voters do.
Can voters decide that women can’t have abortions? That black people can’t vote?
It’s not like we didn’t have a 90% marginal rate in the past – with a robust economy. Yes, very few people paid the top rate. Isn’t that what you’d expect? Why didn’t the economy fall to pieces?
Actually, those rates were put into effect during the Depression and they did not stimulate a vibrant economy. WWII stimulated a vibrant economy. When the war ended, only one country was left with an industrial base of any real consequence and that was us. Being the only game in town beats the system by definition. Now, we have to compete. So, things are different.
Capital gains taxed at about half the rate of earned income.
In what way does this favor any one person over another? Anyone who buys stock or any other capital asset and holds it for a year and a day gets the same tax treatment.
If a business folds and it owes money to its employees, and also owes money to creditors, creditors get paid, employees pound sand.
This benefits the wealthy in what way, assuming it’s even correct?
Can voters decide that women can’t have abortions? That black people can’t vote?
if you’d like to argue that taxes are unconstitutional, please proceed, counselor.
Can voters decide that women can’t have abortions? That black people can’t vote?
if you’d like to argue that taxes are unconstitutional, please proceed, counselor.
I’d be hugely impressed if you or LJ could identify a single tangible item used in the US that isn’t from the private sector…
License plates :^)
I’d be hugely impressed if you or LJ could identify a single tangible item used in the US that isn’t from the private sector…
License plates :^)
Can voters decide that women can’t have abortions? That black people can’t vote?
Are you saying that people have an inalienable right to particular tax rates?
Actually, those rates were put into effect during the Depression and they did not stimulate a vibrant economy. WWII stimulated a vibrant economy. When the war ended, only one country was left with an industrial base of any real consequence and that was us. Being the only game in town beats the system by definition. Now, we have to compete. So, things are different.
The argument isn’t that a high marginal tax rate on high income will stimulate the economy. The argument is that it will do or allow some number of good things without bad economic consequences.
In what way does this favor any one person over another? Anyone who buys stock or any other capital asset and holds it for a year and a day gets the same tax treatment.
Wouldn’t the same be true if capital gains were taxed at the same or even higher rates than income? Couldn’t you ask the same question regardless of the tax regime in place, so long as it didn’t treat people differently on any basis other than the types and levels of income or wealth?
Can voters decide that women can’t have abortions? That black people can’t vote?
Are you saying that people have an inalienable right to particular tax rates?
Actually, those rates were put into effect during the Depression and they did not stimulate a vibrant economy. WWII stimulated a vibrant economy. When the war ended, only one country was left with an industrial base of any real consequence and that was us. Being the only game in town beats the system by definition. Now, we have to compete. So, things are different.
The argument isn’t that a high marginal tax rate on high income will stimulate the economy. The argument is that it will do or allow some number of good things without bad economic consequences.
In what way does this favor any one person over another? Anyone who buys stock or any other capital asset and holds it for a year and a day gets the same tax treatment.
Wouldn’t the same be true if capital gains were taxed at the same or even higher rates than income? Couldn’t you ask the same question regardless of the tax regime in place, so long as it didn’t treat people differently on any basis other than the types and levels of income or wealth?
I think we should have a tax code that specifically targets McKinney for higher tax rates than everyone else. Maybe his friends, family, colleagues, and clients, too.
That’s what we were all really talking about, right? That was the subtext.
I think we should have a tax code that specifically targets McKinney for higher tax rates than everyone else. Maybe his friends, family, colleagues, and clients, too.
That’s what we were all really talking about, right? That was the subtext.
If I live next to a beautiful park, do I have more wealth than someone who lives next to a garbage dump, all other things being equal?
Can you sell your property for more than the other guy can sell his? The difference would be the measure of living next to the park. Like good schools drive up real estate prices.
If I live next to a beautiful park, do I have more wealth than someone who lives next to a garbage dump, all other things being equal?
Can you sell your property for more than the other guy can sell his? The difference would be the measure of living next to the park. Like good schools drive up real estate prices.
I’d be hugely impressed if you or LJ could identify a single tangible item used in the US that isn’t from the private sector
cash.
I’d be hugely impressed if you or LJ could identify a single tangible item used in the US that isn’t from the private sector
cash.
air
air
Sure they are. There is plenty of competition. And, for good or not, there are some enterprises that have to be huge in order to get stuff we really need, like bulldozers and tractors and 737’s and stuff like that.
I mean, it’s funny you mention 737s. Last I checked 737s were made by Boeing. There are no more than half a dozen or a dozen companies in the world (Airbus, Embraer, Bombardier, etc.) that could fairly be said to compete with Boeing in the passenger jet space, likely narrowing to only one or two at the upper end of that market. AFAIK, ALL of them are pretty intimately tied into some kind of system of intimate government support in their respective countries, ranging from outright ownership (e.g., United Aircraft Corporation) to supplementation via defense contracts or R&D support.
This is NOT a free market in anything like the sense of the street of shoe shops.
Is that sort of quasi-monopolistic-quasi-nationalized arrangement necessary to produce large passenger jets efficiently? Possibly so.
But you can’t have it both ways: if a huge pre-existing industrial base and/or intimate and cozy relationships with national governments is a necessary condition for a given industry to function effectively, then that is by definition not an industrial sector with, for example, low barriers to entry and exit, or probably many of the other conditions necessary for free markets to form.
And of course, even on a smaller scale, the point is that even a medium-small sized corporation is, internally, not a free enterprise at all. It’s literally a bureaucracy.
So I’ll readily concede that such scales of organization are probably necessary to efficiently produce stuff on an industrial scale. Bureaucracies FTW!
(And yes, there is some sense in which the competition of one such bureaucracy with others provides, at least theoretically, a useful outside check on some of the excesses an unimpeded bureaucratic system can otherwise become mired in. But those checks become less and less effective the larger and more entrenched the enterprise becomes, or the fewer other players with which it meaningfully competes. See, e.g., cable companies, or the auto industry.)
Sure they are. There is plenty of competition. And, for good or not, there are some enterprises that have to be huge in order to get stuff we really need, like bulldozers and tractors and 737’s and stuff like that.
I mean, it’s funny you mention 737s. Last I checked 737s were made by Boeing. There are no more than half a dozen or a dozen companies in the world (Airbus, Embraer, Bombardier, etc.) that could fairly be said to compete with Boeing in the passenger jet space, likely narrowing to only one or two at the upper end of that market. AFAIK, ALL of them are pretty intimately tied into some kind of system of intimate government support in their respective countries, ranging from outright ownership (e.g., United Aircraft Corporation) to supplementation via defense contracts or R&D support.
This is NOT a free market in anything like the sense of the street of shoe shops.
Is that sort of quasi-monopolistic-quasi-nationalized arrangement necessary to produce large passenger jets efficiently? Possibly so.
But you can’t have it both ways: if a huge pre-existing industrial base and/or intimate and cozy relationships with national governments is a necessary condition for a given industry to function effectively, then that is by definition not an industrial sector with, for example, low barriers to entry and exit, or probably many of the other conditions necessary for free markets to form.
And of course, even on a smaller scale, the point is that even a medium-small sized corporation is, internally, not a free enterprise at all. It’s literally a bureaucracy.
So I’ll readily concede that such scales of organization are probably necessary to efficiently produce stuff on an industrial scale. Bureaucracies FTW!
(And yes, there is some sense in which the competition of one such bureaucracy with others provides, at least theoretically, a useful outside check on some of the excesses an unimpeded bureaucratic system can otherwise become mired in. But those checks become less and less effective the larger and more entrenched the enterprise becomes, or the fewer other players with which it meaningfully competes. See, e.g., cable companies, or the auto industry.)
land
rivers
ocean
lakes
land
rivers
ocean
lakes
WWII stimulated a vibrant economy.
Yes. The government took over pretty much the entire economy and spent hugely for war material…..a fiscal footing opposed by “conservatives” ever since. This spending was coupled with forced savings (price controls, buy war bonds) that created a situation of huge pent up demand once hostilities ceased.
As for our being the only economy “standing”, well, foreign trade was not that big a part of our economy during the 40’s thru the 60’s. We basically assisted the creation foreign competition as an ancillary part of our anti Soviet Union Cold War foreign policy.
Now, we have to compete
Who is “we” kimosabe? U.S. factory workers have to compete. You, being an attorney do not. You are part of the coddled professional class.
WWII stimulated a vibrant economy.
Yes. The government took over pretty much the entire economy and spent hugely for war material…..a fiscal footing opposed by “conservatives” ever since. This spending was coupled with forced savings (price controls, buy war bonds) that created a situation of huge pent up demand once hostilities ceased.
As for our being the only economy “standing”, well, foreign trade was not that big a part of our economy during the 40’s thru the 60’s. We basically assisted the creation foreign competition as an ancillary part of our anti Soviet Union Cold War foreign policy.
Now, we have to compete
Who is “we” kimosabe? U.S. factory workers have to compete. You, being an attorney do not. You are part of the coddled professional class.
Can voters decide that women can’t have abortions? That black people can’t vote?
In fact, they could. It’s in the Constitution…something, something….Amendments. You’re an attorney, correct?
Can voters decide that women can’t have abortions? That black people can’t vote?
In fact, they could. It’s in the Constitution…something, something….Amendments. You’re an attorney, correct?
Business Person A is the rule, in my experience, not the exception. Every small business owner I know who follows this model does well. including me FWIW.
The point is not that they are necessarily rare.*
The point is: what the heck do you mean by “doing well” exactly? E.g., would you automatically consider businessperson B to be doing better than A, assuming that, say, B brings home $20 million a year and A only $1 mil?
—-
* One of the central touchstones of this discussion is the fact that real people do indeed do stuff for a variety of reasons other than simply making the most money possible. It’s not surprising that many people would continue to want to run responsible businesses. Nevertheless, it’s a problem that there exist people who do not run responsible businesses, and that these latter are generally regarded as just as — if not more — successful than the former.
Business Person A is the rule, in my experience, not the exception. Every small business owner I know who follows this model does well. including me FWIW.
The point is not that they are necessarily rare.*
The point is: what the heck do you mean by “doing well” exactly? E.g., would you automatically consider businessperson B to be doing better than A, assuming that, say, B brings home $20 million a year and A only $1 mil?
—-
* One of the central touchstones of this discussion is the fact that real people do indeed do stuff for a variety of reasons other than simply making the most money possible. It’s not surprising that many people would continue to want to run responsible businesses. Nevertheless, it’s a problem that there exist people who do not run responsible businesses, and that these latter are generally regarded as just as — if not more — successful than the former.
WWII stimulated a vibrant economy. When the war ended, only one country was left with an industrial base of any real consequence and that was us.
The war stimulated the economy only in the broken window fallacy sense. It destroyed a tremendous amount of human capital and wealth leaving the world very much poorer than it was before the war began, including the US.
The industrial base later became a competitive disadvantage as countries like Germany and Japan were able to start from near scratch with new, more productive capital assets and grow their economies while their governments were too weak to interfere much.
Hong Kong went from a third world to a rich first world country in a couple of generations because the English rulers enforced basic rule of law and then had tea while mostly leaving everyone alone.
WWII stimulated a vibrant economy. When the war ended, only one country was left with an industrial base of any real consequence and that was us.
The war stimulated the economy only in the broken window fallacy sense. It destroyed a tremendous amount of human capital and wealth leaving the world very much poorer than it was before the war began, including the US.
The industrial base later became a competitive disadvantage as countries like Germany and Japan were able to start from near scratch with new, more productive capital assets and grow their economies while their governments were too weak to interfere much.
Hong Kong went from a third world to a rich first world country in a couple of generations because the English rulers enforced basic rule of law and then had tea while mostly leaving everyone alone.
Look, we all overstate. It is your doubling down that looks so idiotic. Don’t know if you are looking to Trump for argumentation tips or not, but this
I’m pretty sure I’m saying almost the same thing substantively in both instances
I’m pretty sure you are not.
If I were to claim that virtually all languages had feature X and another linguist said horseshit, and I then came back later and offhandedly referenced the conversation and said ‘When I was talking about Romance languages and said 90% of them had feature X, linguist X said my claim was horseshit’, I expect I would get ripped to shreds and I believe I would deserve it. After all, it sure looks like I’m trying to set up an impression that the other linguist is making a kneejerk reaction to a perhaps reasonable claim, when in fact, I got called out for talking out of my ass. But perhaps linguists have higher standards of honesty then you are used to.
Prostate cancer is an interesting case because it strikes men and the time to be concerned is after you turn 50. So, as they say, there’s gold in them thar hills. It’s therefore unsurprising that there are a lot of people and companies seeing what kind of treatments they can produce and being motivated by how much money they could potentially make. Certainly something I’d be interested in discussing.
But your argument isn’t that, it’s that you first argue that in medicine, no one anywhere does anything that isn’t for profit. You then tamp down to 90% for prostate cancer treatments cause it was in the context of my surgery.
Then, when us wild eyed leftist commies start complaining about things like this
https://hbr.org/2017/04/the-cost-of-drugs-for-rare-diseases-is-threatening-the-u-s-health-care-system
you can say ‘a-ha, didn’t I say that all medical innovation is from the private sector! Gotcha!’ So we get repartee like this, when you quote hairshirt saying
Hey, where did Lockheed get all this money, anyway?
and you write
This is a good example of my point above.
If you don’t see that this is bullshit argumentation, you really ought to stop and consider. It does both you and the conversation no favors.
As I said, everyone overstates things from time to time and a simple ‘gee, let me step back a bit from my claim’ would be so refreshing. But instead, we get things like this move of the goalposts:
you or LJ are free to point out a medicine or a device or a piece of equipment in use anywhere in the US or Japan to treat any condition including prostate cancer that is not produced in the private sector. (emph mine)
So to falsify your statement, we have to find a Dr. Brown who, instead of a time machine, is either welding together a DaVinci robot surgery system to let Marty McFly use for free or formulating, making and giving away, free of charge, doses of some medicine that will work on Michael J Fox’s Parkinson’s disease. Of course, in the story, Doc Brown has to get the money to make his time machine from Libyan terrorists, so Back to the Future is arguably more realistic than your line.
Just to harp on this a little more, none of this is the same as what you started with, which was, repeated here for convenience sake:
Virtually every device and medicine used in modern medicine is the product of free enterprise and the profit motive.(again emphasis mine)
This is about the idea, which you morph into a question about production. Now, I expect you can do your best Bill Clinton imitation ‘ahh, it depends on what you mean when you say “being the product of”‘ and maybe you can convince yourself that works, but if I were to say ‘this fantasy is the product of your febrile imagination’, I expect you would understand it to mean that it came out of your head, not that you somehow took the idea from someone else and then reshaped it.
I’d also point out that I rarely wade in on these issues of taxation and government funding cause I think that the details for all this stuff are pretty important, and I don’t really know enough of them. This is not to suggest that people shouldn’t talk about them, it’s just not my cup of tea. So your constant efforts to try and create a leftist conspiracy over redistribution of wealth or denigration of the private sector (and note that the OP is by neither me nor Russell) are rather tiresome, especially when it is in the form of ‘I’d be hugely impressed if you or LJ could…’
tldr, stop making shitty arguments. You are embarrassing yourself.
Look, we all overstate. It is your doubling down that looks so idiotic. Don’t know if you are looking to Trump for argumentation tips or not, but this
I’m pretty sure I’m saying almost the same thing substantively in both instances
I’m pretty sure you are not.
If I were to claim that virtually all languages had feature X and another linguist said horseshit, and I then came back later and offhandedly referenced the conversation and said ‘When I was talking about Romance languages and said 90% of them had feature X, linguist X said my claim was horseshit’, I expect I would get ripped to shreds and I believe I would deserve it. After all, it sure looks like I’m trying to set up an impression that the other linguist is making a kneejerk reaction to a perhaps reasonable claim, when in fact, I got called out for talking out of my ass. But perhaps linguists have higher standards of honesty then you are used to.
Prostate cancer is an interesting case because it strikes men and the time to be concerned is after you turn 50. So, as they say, there’s gold in them thar hills. It’s therefore unsurprising that there are a lot of people and companies seeing what kind of treatments they can produce and being motivated by how much money they could potentially make. Certainly something I’d be interested in discussing.
But your argument isn’t that, it’s that you first argue that in medicine, no one anywhere does anything that isn’t for profit. You then tamp down to 90% for prostate cancer treatments cause it was in the context of my surgery.
Then, when us wild eyed leftist commies start complaining about things like this
https://hbr.org/2017/04/the-cost-of-drugs-for-rare-diseases-is-threatening-the-u-s-health-care-system
you can say ‘a-ha, didn’t I say that all medical innovation is from the private sector! Gotcha!’ So we get repartee like this, when you quote hairshirt saying
Hey, where did Lockheed get all this money, anyway?
and you write
This is a good example of my point above.
If you don’t see that this is bullshit argumentation, you really ought to stop and consider. It does both you and the conversation no favors.
As I said, everyone overstates things from time to time and a simple ‘gee, let me step back a bit from my claim’ would be so refreshing. But instead, we get things like this move of the goalposts:
you or LJ are free to point out a medicine or a device or a piece of equipment in use anywhere in the US or Japan to treat any condition including prostate cancer that is not produced in the private sector. (emph mine)
So to falsify your statement, we have to find a Dr. Brown who, instead of a time machine, is either welding together a DaVinci robot surgery system to let Marty McFly use for free or formulating, making and giving away, free of charge, doses of some medicine that will work on Michael J Fox’s Parkinson’s disease. Of course, in the story, Doc Brown has to get the money to make his time machine from Libyan terrorists, so Back to the Future is arguably more realistic than your line.
Just to harp on this a little more, none of this is the same as what you started with, which was, repeated here for convenience sake:
Virtually every device and medicine used in modern medicine is the product of free enterprise and the profit motive.(again emphasis mine)
This is about the idea, which you morph into a question about production. Now, I expect you can do your best Bill Clinton imitation ‘ahh, it depends on what you mean when you say “being the product of”‘ and maybe you can convince yourself that works, but if I were to say ‘this fantasy is the product of your febrile imagination’, I expect you would understand it to mean that it came out of your head, not that you somehow took the idea from someone else and then reshaped it.
I’d also point out that I rarely wade in on these issues of taxation and government funding cause I think that the details for all this stuff are pretty important, and I don’t really know enough of them. This is not to suggest that people shouldn’t talk about them, it’s just not my cup of tea. So your constant efforts to try and create a leftist conspiracy over redistribution of wealth or denigration of the private sector (and note that the OP is by neither me nor Russell) are rather tiresome, especially when it is in the form of ‘I’d be hugely impressed if you or LJ could…’
tldr, stop making shitty arguments. You are embarrassing yourself.
In fact, I’d be hugely impressed if you or LJ could identify a single tangible item used in the US that isn’t from the private sector…
Besides all the other answers people have offered, the answer to this question is a foregone conclusion, because this is how our culture produces things. So of course it’s how most things will be produced.
In fact, I’d be hugely impressed if you or LJ could identify a single tangible item used in the US that isn’t from the private sector…
Besides all the other answers people have offered, the answer to this question is a foregone conclusion, because this is how our culture produces things. So of course it’s how most things will be produced.
* One of the central touchstones of this discussion is the fact that real people do indeed do stuff for a variety of reasons other than simply making the most money possible.
Indeed. Most small businesses are in fact somebody buying themselves a job where they can “be the boss”. Most are undercapitalized. Most are gone within 5 years.
I have also noticed that none of our conservative interlocutors invoke actually existing micro-economic classical pure competition market theory…you know, the theory that holds that (economic) profits are competed away, for example.
* One of the central touchstones of this discussion is the fact that real people do indeed do stuff for a variety of reasons other than simply making the most money possible.
Indeed. Most small businesses are in fact somebody buying themselves a job where they can “be the boss”. Most are undercapitalized. Most are gone within 5 years.
I have also noticed that none of our conservative interlocutors invoke actually existing micro-economic classical pure competition market theory…you know, the theory that holds that (economic) profits are competed away, for example.
Just a general statement aimed at no one in particular:
The way the system works, income above a certain level allows the accumulation of wealth. Wealth above a certain level allows one to gain further income. This is a positive feedback loop.
I’d say it is currently not sufficiently attenuated, thus the increasing concentration of wealth and income. A larger and larger share of national income continues to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands, mostly the ones who are already the wealthiest.
At some point, the system breaks down. There is insufficient demand for whatever capital might produce. People suffer and violence erupts.
Why is this good? Just because we make it possible for some number of people to have individual net worth in excess of, say, $100M (just to throw a number out without much analysis)?
Just a general statement aimed at no one in particular:
The way the system works, income above a certain level allows the accumulation of wealth. Wealth above a certain level allows one to gain further income. This is a positive feedback loop.
I’d say it is currently not sufficiently attenuated, thus the increasing concentration of wealth and income. A larger and larger share of national income continues to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands, mostly the ones who are already the wealthiest.
At some point, the system breaks down. There is insufficient demand for whatever capital might produce. People suffer and violence erupts.
Why is this good? Just because we make it possible for some number of people to have individual net worth in excess of, say, $100M (just to throw a number out without much analysis)?
The industrial base later became a competitive disadvantage as countries like Germany and Japan were able to start from near scratch with new, more productive capital assets and grow their economies while their governments were too weak to interfere much.
There is so much horseshit packed into this claim that I do not even know where to begin. The growth of Japan’s post war economy, to take just one example, was fueled by low cost exports coupled with highly protected domestic markets. The US allowed, even encouraged this policy.
The industrial base later became a competitive disadvantage as countries like Germany and Japan were able to start from near scratch with new, more productive capital assets and grow their economies while their governments were too weak to interfere much.
There is so much horseshit packed into this claim that I do not even know where to begin. The growth of Japan’s post war economy, to take just one example, was fueled by low cost exports coupled with highly protected domestic markets. The US allowed, even encouraged this policy.
Capital formation is capitalism. Market economies are capitalism.
both capital formation and market economies existed before – centuries or millenia before – capitalism as an economic doctrine.
so, no.
Capital formation is capitalism. Market economies are capitalism.
both capital formation and market economies existed before – centuries or millenia before – capitalism as an economic doctrine.
so, no.
how much of that wealth at the top is essentially fictional? if the DJIA loses 50% of its value tomorrow, how much of their Wednesday wealth do the top 1% have on Friday?
how much of that wealth at the top is essentially fictional? if the DJIA loses 50% of its value tomorrow, how much of their Wednesday wealth do the top 1% have on Friday?
If I live next to a beautiful park, do I have more wealth than someone who lives next to a garbage dump, all other things being equal?
Probably, assuming you own your home.
if you’d like to argue that taxes are unconstitutional, please proceed, counselor.
Not arguing that at all. If we didn’t have a constitution, why would it be ok for voters to decide how much someone can make and keep but not to allow votes on abortion or how to treat people of different colors? The principle is telling other people what they can and cannot do. Why one and not all?
cash.
Ok, good one.
air
Not so good. Clearly, I’m asking about tangible items produced by human activity.
This:
Look, we all overstate. It is your doubling down that looks so idiotic. Don’t know if you are looking to Trump for argumentation tips or not, but this
and this:
tldr, stop making shitty arguments. You are embarrassing yourself.
LJ, you are truly a delightful human being. Thanks for the thoughtful and substantive, non ad hominem response. I am a better person for this.
Never again will I say “the Mustang is a product of Ford Motor Company”. I will only say “Ford Motor Company produces the Mustang.” Because one is a lie and the other is a true statement.
If I live next to a beautiful park, do I have more wealth than someone who lives next to a garbage dump, all other things being equal?
Probably, assuming you own your home.
if you’d like to argue that taxes are unconstitutional, please proceed, counselor.
Not arguing that at all. If we didn’t have a constitution, why would it be ok for voters to decide how much someone can make and keep but not to allow votes on abortion or how to treat people of different colors? The principle is telling other people what they can and cannot do. Why one and not all?
cash.
Ok, good one.
air
Not so good. Clearly, I’m asking about tangible items produced by human activity.
This:
Look, we all overstate. It is your doubling down that looks so idiotic. Don’t know if you are looking to Trump for argumentation tips or not, but this
and this:
tldr, stop making shitty arguments. You are embarrassing yourself.
LJ, you are truly a delightful human being. Thanks for the thoughtful and substantive, non ad hominem response. I am a better person for this.
Never again will I say “the Mustang is a product of Ford Motor Company”. I will only say “Ford Motor Company produces the Mustang.” Because one is a lie and the other is a true statement.
Why one and not all?
we already have taxes, that point is presumably settled. all we’re arguing about is the rate. this has nothing to do with racism.
Why one and not all?
we already have taxes, that point is presumably settled. all we’re arguing about is the rate. this has nothing to do with racism.
both capital formation and market economies existed before – centuries or millenia before – capitalism as an economic doctrine.
Serious question: can you give me some examples? Are you thinking of the transition from feudalism via the Renaissance?
how much of that wealth at the top is essentially fictional?
Excellent point. Somebody buys a painting for 50 million–does that painting remain worth 50 million? To me it’s like buying a car but paying 100 times list price. Or a mega-mansion–it’s only worth what someone will pay for it. At some point, the number of dumbasses with that kind of money would seem to run out, one would think. The Dow is different, but it’s certainly not etched in stone that the market couldn’t plunge and remain depressed for some considerable time, reducing “wealth” considerably in the process.
both capital formation and market economies existed before – centuries or millenia before – capitalism as an economic doctrine.
Serious question: can you give me some examples? Are you thinking of the transition from feudalism via the Renaissance?
how much of that wealth at the top is essentially fictional?
Excellent point. Somebody buys a painting for 50 million–does that painting remain worth 50 million? To me it’s like buying a car but paying 100 times list price. Or a mega-mansion–it’s only worth what someone will pay for it. At some point, the number of dumbasses with that kind of money would seem to run out, one would think. The Dow is different, but it’s certainly not etched in stone that the market couldn’t plunge and remain depressed for some considerable time, reducing “wealth” considerably in the process.
Is the NFL all about competition?
Is it a capitalist enterprise?
Is it a free-market enterprise?
I only ask because the NFL owners (rich capitalists, by anybody’s definition) have decided that NFL players (rich working stiffs, as even McKinney might agree) are not allowed to demonstrate anything but “patriotism” on the field.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/patriots/2018/05/23/nfl-owners-discussing-ways-handle-national-anthem-protests/F6qhnPxjUcRX6y97Bg5ddJ/story.html
–TP
Is the NFL all about competition?
Is it a capitalist enterprise?
Is it a free-market enterprise?
I only ask because the NFL owners (rich capitalists, by anybody’s definition) have decided that NFL players (rich working stiffs, as even McKinney might agree) are not allowed to demonstrate anything but “patriotism” on the field.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/patriots/2018/05/23/nfl-owners-discussing-ways-handle-national-anthem-protests/F6qhnPxjUcRX6y97Bg5ddJ/story.html
–TP
Pretty much every material thing we touch in our lives was build/produced by someone intending to make a profit. Capping income, capping wealth has the effect of capping the economy.
Perhaps I’m just excessively slow this morning. But I’m having trouble seeing how the first sentence leads to the second.
Actually, I’m not seeing anything to substantiate the second sentence. Sure, it you cap total wealth you cap the economy. But we are talking here about capping individual wealth — whole different discussion. Unless you think that somehow only the wealth of the super rich matters.
Pretty much every material thing we touch in our lives was build/produced by someone intending to make a profit. Capping income, capping wealth has the effect of capping the economy.
Perhaps I’m just excessively slow this morning. But I’m having trouble seeing how the first sentence leads to the second.
Actually, I’m not seeing anything to substantiate the second sentence. Sure, it you cap total wealth you cap the economy. But we are talking here about capping individual wealth — whole different discussion. Unless you think that somehow only the wealth of the super rich matters.
we already have taxes, that point is presumably settled. all we’re arguing about is the rate. this has nothing to do with racism.
Yes and my point is a bit different, more like a thought experiment. Let’s say we hit the reset button and had no income tax or taxing scheme at all and no 14th amendment. Against that background, what principle distinguishes permitting voters to tell a person he/she can only acquire X but will not allow voters to tell women they can’t have abortions or blacks that they can’t own property?
we already have taxes, that point is presumably settled. all we’re arguing about is the rate. this has nothing to do with racism.
Yes and my point is a bit different, more like a thought experiment. Let’s say we hit the reset button and had no income tax or taxing scheme at all and no 14th amendment. Against that background, what principle distinguishes permitting voters to tell a person he/she can only acquire X but will not allow voters to tell women they can’t have abortions or blacks that they can’t own property?
…so much horseshit…
Quite a bit granted.
Wirtschaftswunder (Economic Miracle)
Japanese Economic Miracle
…so much horseshit…
Quite a bit granted.
Wirtschaftswunder (Economic Miracle)
Japanese Economic Miracle
Probably, assuming you own your home.
I guess I was trying to make some kind of allusion to the idea of wealth not necessarily being limited to monetary wealth or personal possessions. Likewise, I make a distinction between quality of life and standard of living, since cheap TVs and phones are often said to justify our current economic state.
If we didn’t have a constitution, why would it be ok for voters to decide how much someone can make and keep but not to allow votes on abortion or how to treat people of different colors? The principle is telling other people what they can and cannot do. Why one and not all?
We do have a constitution, and some things are in it and some things aren’t for a bunch of reasons (if I can be so technical and specific about it). That aside, when telling people what they can and can’t do, which is pretty much what law is, you generally have to justify preventing someone from doing something on the basis that allowing it would do enough harm to someone else (or lots of other people) that you can’t allow it and still have a functioning free and fair society (assuming a free and fair society is what you want).
Are you really saying that the constitution is the only thing that creates a distinction between near confiscatory tax rates at very high incomes on one hand and racial discrimination on the other? Is that the moral argument you want to make, based on the generalization that “you’re just telling people what to do, so what the difference?”
Probably, assuming you own your home.
I guess I was trying to make some kind of allusion to the idea of wealth not necessarily being limited to monetary wealth or personal possessions. Likewise, I make a distinction between quality of life and standard of living, since cheap TVs and phones are often said to justify our current economic state.
If we didn’t have a constitution, why would it be ok for voters to decide how much someone can make and keep but not to allow votes on abortion or how to treat people of different colors? The principle is telling other people what they can and cannot do. Why one and not all?
We do have a constitution, and some things are in it and some things aren’t for a bunch of reasons (if I can be so technical and specific about it). That aside, when telling people what they can and can’t do, which is pretty much what law is, you generally have to justify preventing someone from doing something on the basis that allowing it would do enough harm to someone else (or lots of other people) that you can’t allow it and still have a functioning free and fair society (assuming a free and fair society is what you want).
Are you really saying that the constitution is the only thing that creates a distinction between near confiscatory tax rates at very high incomes on one hand and racial discrimination on the other? Is that the moral argument you want to make, based on the generalization that “you’re just telling people what to do, so what the difference?”
…are you suggesting, for example, that I-95 shouldn’t have been built, and that it should have been left to private actors to figure out how to move people and goods up and down the East Coast?…
No. Government should build infrastructure. Financial markets should allocate capital to speculative ventures.
…are you suggesting, for example, that I-95 shouldn’t have been built, and that it should have been left to private actors to figure out how to move people and goods up and down the East Coast?…
No. Government should build infrastructure. Financial markets should allocate capital to speculative ventures.
how much of that wealth at the top is essentially fictional?
The wealth isn’t fictional but its evaluation may be since a large component of things like stock prices are based on expectations, not current value.
how much of that wealth at the top is essentially fictional?
The wealth isn’t fictional but its evaluation may be since a large component of things like stock prices are based on expectations, not current value.
To expand a bit on the tax-rate thing, I would also make the argument that no one would be accumulating the sort of wealth they can in the ways they can in the first place without a functioning system of government in place and all the underpinnings the government provides, so it’s justifiable for the government to limit (or at least tax heavily at some point) the income or wealth someone might only attain with the government’s infrastructure and institutions in place.
To expand a bit on the tax-rate thing, I would also make the argument that no one would be accumulating the sort of wealth they can in the ways they can in the first place without a functioning system of government in place and all the underpinnings the government provides, so it’s justifiable for the government to limit (or at least tax heavily at some point) the income or wealth someone might only attain with the government’s infrastructure and institutions in place.
Capital gains taxed at about half the rate of earned income.
In what way does this favor any one person over another? Anyone who buys stock or any other capital asset and holds it for a year and a day gets the same tax treatment.
Most obviously, someone who cannot afford to buy stock or other capital asset doesn’t get the same tax treatment, and so has less chance to be able to afford to do so in the future. Someone who already can afford to do so (i.e. is more wealthy) gets a leg up on accumulating yet more wealth.
Sure, someone who could buy stocks, but chooses to go on a cruise, has no complaint that someone else has done so. But we are talking about all the folks who earn a salary too low to do either. They not only are discriminated against in the tax rates, they are also discriminated against in that a far bigger portion of their income goes to taxes (Social Security) than those who make above some arbitrary threshold. (One which, note, is not closely related to the amount that would have to be saved to actually pay for their retirement/Medicare.)
In short, if you start from something far distant from a level playing field, you can’t really argue that, once you get onto the high plateau, everybody gets treated the same.
Capital gains taxed at about half the rate of earned income.
In what way does this favor any one person over another? Anyone who buys stock or any other capital asset and holds it for a year and a day gets the same tax treatment.
Most obviously, someone who cannot afford to buy stock or other capital asset doesn’t get the same tax treatment, and so has less chance to be able to afford to do so in the future. Someone who already can afford to do so (i.e. is more wealthy) gets a leg up on accumulating yet more wealth.
Sure, someone who could buy stocks, but chooses to go on a cruise, has no complaint that someone else has done so. But we are talking about all the folks who earn a salary too low to do either. They not only are discriminated against in the tax rates, they are also discriminated against in that a far bigger portion of their income goes to taxes (Social Security) than those who make above some arbitrary threshold. (One which, note, is not closely related to the amount that would have to be saved to actually pay for their retirement/Medicare.)
In short, if you start from something far distant from a level playing field, you can’t really argue that, once you get onto the high plateau, everybody gets treated the same.
(assuming a free and fair society is what you want)
It would be very difficult to have both.
(assuming a free and fair society is what you want)
It would be very difficult to have both.
Financial markets should allocate capital to speculative ventures.
Okay. But who said government (and only government?) should allocate capital to speculative ventures, or that financial markets shouldn’t? (Is R&D a speculative venture?)
I’m getting lost here. I thought we were talking about how high to tax income or wealth, given the marginal utility of money, and whether or not doing so would somehow put an end to capital investment. Maybe I have to re-read the thread.
Financial markets should allocate capital to speculative ventures.
Okay. But who said government (and only government?) should allocate capital to speculative ventures, or that financial markets shouldn’t? (Is R&D a speculative venture?)
I’m getting lost here. I thought we were talking about how high to tax income or wealth, given the marginal utility of money, and whether or not doing so would somehow put an end to capital investment. Maybe I have to re-read the thread.
Government should build infrastructure. Financial markets should allocate capital to speculative ventures.
And yet, a lot of what we now regard as basic, necessary, infrastructure started life a speculative ventures. Speculation by government, perhaps, but speculative in the sense that it wasn’t clear (indeed, was loudly disputed) whether it was needed at all.
The distinction is nowhere near as clear as the above would suggest.
Government should build infrastructure. Financial markets should allocate capital to speculative ventures.
And yet, a lot of what we now regard as basic, necessary, infrastructure started life a speculative ventures. Speculation by government, perhaps, but speculative in the sense that it wasn’t clear (indeed, was loudly disputed) whether it was needed at all.
The distinction is nowhere near as clear as the above would suggest.
Most obviously, someone who cannot afford to buy stock or other capital asset doesn’t get the same tax treatment, and so has less chance to be able to afford to do so in the future. Someone who already can afford to do so (i.e. is more wealthy) gets a leg up on accumulating yet more wealth.
Don’t take the bait. McKinney’s not framing it the way you are. But McKinney’s question about how a given tax rate on a given type of income favors one person over another is meaningless, because it applies regardless of the tax rate. It has no bearing on the issue at hand.
Most obviously, someone who cannot afford to buy stock or other capital asset doesn’t get the same tax treatment, and so has less chance to be able to afford to do so in the future. Someone who already can afford to do so (i.e. is more wealthy) gets a leg up on accumulating yet more wealth.
Don’t take the bait. McKinney’s not framing it the way you are. But McKinney’s question about how a given tax rate on a given type of income favors one person over another is meaningless, because it applies regardless of the tax rate. It has no bearing on the issue at hand.
(assuming a free and fair society is what you want)
It would be very difficult to have both.
Well, it might be difficult to have completely free and completely fair at the same time. But it is definitely possible to have a mix.
That mix can go all the way down to totally unfree and totally unfair. So some level of getting both is clearly possible. Although certainly you can argue about the mix. (Libertarians, at least, loudly make the case for going all in on one axis. The rest of us don’t have to buy into their ideal type formulation.)
(assuming a free and fair society is what you want)
It would be very difficult to have both.
Well, it might be difficult to have completely free and completely fair at the same time. But it is definitely possible to have a mix.
That mix can go all the way down to totally unfree and totally unfair. So some level of getting both is clearly possible. Although certainly you can argue about the mix. (Libertarians, at least, loudly make the case for going all in on one axis. The rest of us don’t have to buy into their ideal type formulation.)
Not so good. Clearly, I’m asking about tangible items produced by human activity.
Courts?
Not so good. Clearly, I’m asking about tangible items produced by human activity.
Courts?
Don’t take the bait. McKinney’s not framing it the way you are. But McKinney’s question about how a given tax rate on a given type of income favors one person over another is meaningless
If someone is making a sincere, good faith, effort to explain his position, I’m willing to engage. Heck, I’ll even engage with McManus occasionally. For all that I consider his views totally divorced from objective reality.
If McKinney was just trolling, you might have a point. But my sense is that he is doing no such thing.
Don’t take the bait. McKinney’s not framing it the way you are. But McKinney’s question about how a given tax rate on a given type of income favors one person over another is meaningless
If someone is making a sincere, good faith, effort to explain his position, I’m willing to engage. Heck, I’ll even engage with McManus occasionally. For all that I consider his views totally divorced from objective reality.
If McKinney was just trolling, you might have a point. But my sense is that he is doing no such thing.
Perhaps I’m just excessively slow this morning. But I’m having trouble seeing how the first sentence leads to the second.
Actually, I’m not seeing anything to substantiate the second sentence. Sure, it you cap total wealth you cap the economy. But we are talking here about capping individual wealth — whole different discussion. Unless you think that somehow only the wealth of the super rich matters.
Ok, if you cap individual wealth, then by definition, you’ve capped the size of any individual’s economic undertaking. No privately owned company could ever have a net worth greater than your individual-allowed amount of wealth. Everything else gets confiscated with your 100% tax. That is one example. The larger picture is that if everyone is capped at X then your economy is never more than X times the population. So, if you cap everyone individually, you’ve capped everyone in the aggregate.
Perhaps I’m just excessively slow this morning. But I’m having trouble seeing how the first sentence leads to the second.
Actually, I’m not seeing anything to substantiate the second sentence. Sure, it you cap total wealth you cap the economy. But we are talking here about capping individual wealth — whole different discussion. Unless you think that somehow only the wealth of the super rich matters.
Ok, if you cap individual wealth, then by definition, you’ve capped the size of any individual’s economic undertaking. No privately owned company could ever have a net worth greater than your individual-allowed amount of wealth. Everything else gets confiscated with your 100% tax. That is one example. The larger picture is that if everyone is capped at X then your economy is never more than X times the population. So, if you cap everyone individually, you’ve capped everyone in the aggregate.
Ok, if you cap individual wealth, then by definition, you’ve capped the size of any individual’s economic undertaking.
What if we just capped individual wealth at death via a 100% estate tax over amount X?
Ok, if you cap individual wealth, then by definition, you’ve capped the size of any individual’s economic undertaking.
What if we just capped individual wealth at death via a 100% estate tax over amount X?
Ok, if you cap individual wealth, then by definition, you’ve capped the size of any individual’s economic undertaking. No privately owned company could ever have a net worth greater than your individual-allowed amount of wealth. Everything else gets confiscated with your 100% tax. That is one example. The larger picture is that if everyone is capped at X then your economy is never more than X times the population. So, if you cap everyone individually, you’ve capped everyone in the aggregate.
I mean, I’m not actually necessarily in favor of a hard cap, but these objections are silly. You’re probably doing more to convince me to support it!
Of course privately owned companies could be larger than the individual wealth cap. Just no individually owned private companies.
And of course, none of the details for this proposal, such as it is, have been quantified – it could well be that the sensible place to set this cap is determined to be hundreds of millions of dollars, or that the cap is on personal income, not necessarily business capital, etc.
Nor is it obvious to me that what has been proposed is to be a static cap, never adjusted for economic growth. Yet you assume this must be the case!
Better strawmen, please.
Ok, if you cap individual wealth, then by definition, you’ve capped the size of any individual’s economic undertaking. No privately owned company could ever have a net worth greater than your individual-allowed amount of wealth. Everything else gets confiscated with your 100% tax. That is one example. The larger picture is that if everyone is capped at X then your economy is never more than X times the population. So, if you cap everyone individually, you’ve capped everyone in the aggregate.
I mean, I’m not actually necessarily in favor of a hard cap, but these objections are silly. You’re probably doing more to convince me to support it!
Of course privately owned companies could be larger than the individual wealth cap. Just no individually owned private companies.
And of course, none of the details for this proposal, such as it is, have been quantified – it could well be that the sensible place to set this cap is determined to be hundreds of millions of dollars, or that the cap is on personal income, not necessarily business capital, etc.
Nor is it obvious to me that what has been proposed is to be a static cap, never adjusted for economic growth. Yet you assume this must be the case!
Better strawmen, please.
Are you really saying that the constitution is the only thing that creates a distinction between near confiscatory tax rates at very high incomes on one hand and racial discrimination on the other? Is that the moral argument you want to make, based on the generalization that “you’re just telling people what to do, so what the difference?”
I hope that’s not what I’m saying but thanks for asking for a clarification. I do appreciate that. I am trying to get an understanding–perhaps this is just too abstract, but I don’t think so–of what reasoned principle allows voters to limit anyone’s wealth (“you can only have so much and no more”)and not be equally arbitrary with others in a different context, “No, you can’t vote. No, you can’t have an abortion.”)
Don’t take the bait. McKinney’s not framing it the way you are. But McKinney’s question about how a given tax rate on a given type of income favors one person over another is meaningless, because it applies regardless of the tax rate. It has no bearing on the issue at hand.
Actually, it was a digression. I raised the side issue with Russell and BP, inquiring as to specifics of what public policies perpetuate the wealthy. I got my answer. I don’t agree with them but they both responded, which I appreciate. I articulated one of the bases for my disagreement, i.e. cap gains applies to anyone’s cap gains, not just the wealthy.
I’m getting lost here. I thought we were talking about how high to tax income or wealth, given the marginal utility of money, and whether or not doing so would somehow put an end to capital investment. Maybe I have to re-read the thread.
We all probably have our own take on what we are discussing. I mainly disagree with the notion of capping someone’s wealth for the reasons I’ve stated from my initial comment up to now. A corollary to my thinking is the propriety of deciding for someone else what amount of the money they earn can be kept. Big surprise: I think taking it on ourselves to limit what someone can otherwise legally do is problematic, to say the least. Counterproductive from a policy standpoint, and problematic from a personal freedom standpoint.
If I may say, the give and take, for the most part, reminds me of our pre-Trump discussions.
Are you really saying that the constitution is the only thing that creates a distinction between near confiscatory tax rates at very high incomes on one hand and racial discrimination on the other? Is that the moral argument you want to make, based on the generalization that “you’re just telling people what to do, so what the difference?”
I hope that’s not what I’m saying but thanks for asking for a clarification. I do appreciate that. I am trying to get an understanding–perhaps this is just too abstract, but I don’t think so–of what reasoned principle allows voters to limit anyone’s wealth (“you can only have so much and no more”)and not be equally arbitrary with others in a different context, “No, you can’t vote. No, you can’t have an abortion.”)
Don’t take the bait. McKinney’s not framing it the way you are. But McKinney’s question about how a given tax rate on a given type of income favors one person over another is meaningless, because it applies regardless of the tax rate. It has no bearing on the issue at hand.
Actually, it was a digression. I raised the side issue with Russell and BP, inquiring as to specifics of what public policies perpetuate the wealthy. I got my answer. I don’t agree with them but they both responded, which I appreciate. I articulated one of the bases for my disagreement, i.e. cap gains applies to anyone’s cap gains, not just the wealthy.
I’m getting lost here. I thought we were talking about how high to tax income or wealth, given the marginal utility of money, and whether or not doing so would somehow put an end to capital investment. Maybe I have to re-read the thread.
We all probably have our own take on what we are discussing. I mainly disagree with the notion of capping someone’s wealth for the reasons I’ve stated from my initial comment up to now. A corollary to my thinking is the propriety of deciding for someone else what amount of the money they earn can be kept. Big surprise: I think taking it on ourselves to limit what someone can otherwise legally do is problematic, to say the least. Counterproductive from a policy standpoint, and problematic from a personal freedom standpoint.
If I may say, the give and take, for the most part, reminds me of our pre-Trump discussions.
Ok, if you cap individual wealth, then by definition, you’ve capped the size of any individual’s economic undertaking. No privately owned company could ever have a net worth greater than your individual-allowed amount of wealth. Everything else gets confiscated with your 100% tax.
I think I may have been unclear. I was talking about a high (I was actually thinking about 98%) tax rate on income. That isn’t a cap on wealth, per se.
Neither (at least as I, as a non-tax-accountant, understand the tax law) does it cap the size of privately owned firms — to the extent that they have been grown by the current owner. If I start a firm (worth zero) and grow it into a billion dollar company, that billion dollars wasn’t income to me. It was, mostly, an artifact of increased cashflow rather than net income to the owner(s). Especially if, as is possible, it’s an S corp.
Ok, if you cap individual wealth, then by definition, you’ve capped the size of any individual’s economic undertaking. No privately owned company could ever have a net worth greater than your individual-allowed amount of wealth. Everything else gets confiscated with your 100% tax.
I think I may have been unclear. I was talking about a high (I was actually thinking about 98%) tax rate on income. That isn’t a cap on wealth, per se.
Neither (at least as I, as a non-tax-accountant, understand the tax law) does it cap the size of privately owned firms — to the extent that they have been grown by the current owner. If I start a firm (worth zero) and grow it into a billion dollar company, that billion dollars wasn’t income to me. It was, mostly, an artifact of increased cashflow rather than net income to the owner(s). Especially if, as is possible, it’s an S corp.
McTX: So, if you cap everyone individually, you’ve capped everyone in the aggregate.
Now that’s a true but exceptionally silly argument.
If we “capped” every American at $1 million of annual income, we would be capping GDP at $300 trillion.
If we “capped” every American at $1 billion of net worth, we would be capping US wealth at … well, you do the math.
–TP
McTX: So, if you cap everyone individually, you’ve capped everyone in the aggregate.
Now that’s a true but exceptionally silly argument.
If we “capped” every American at $1 million of annual income, we would be capping GDP at $300 trillion.
If we “capped” every American at $1 billion of net worth, we would be capping US wealth at … well, you do the math.
–TP
of what reasoned principle allows voters to limit anyone’s wealth (“you can only have so much and no more”)and not be equally arbitrary with others in a different context, “No, you can’t vote. No, you can’t have an abortion.”)
I’m only dimly able to even see your objection here.
I mean, let’s turn the question around: What principle allows a government to restrict anyone to merely one vote when their intelligence, ambition or resources might allow them to wield so many more?
If that seems like a silly question, then perhaps you can see my perspective on yours. ‘You can only have so much and not more’ is actually kind of a fundamental principle of democracy.
And of course the original question you asked was why voters could not say that black people could not vote. To which the answer is obviously the principle of equal protection. We (finally) figured out that there’s no valid reason for the government to distinguish between black people and other sorts of people for the purposes of civic participation, so we (in theory, if not in practice) don’t.
Interestingly, that doesn’t automatically extend to other kinds of restrictions on voting. We don’t (yet) extend the franchise to children under the age of 18, for example. Equal protection doesn’t apply because
we collectively allow that there are (arguably) legitimate reasons to not want young children to vote. The voters, through their representatives, certainly could decide to change this age — either down, or, indeed up, or remove it entirely — and I don’t think there’s any a priori reason to think that such changes would be immoral.
And that’s for a fundamental modification of the franchise.
Changes in property and tax law seem rather more easily justifiable.
Certainly, I would agree that anyone wanting to make such a change should present a positive case for it, but that’s exactly the argument being made here. I think there are indeed a variety of reasons to think that ‘excessive’ wealth and income are indeed negative drains on society.
Assuming enough others agree, there isn’t anything remotely unprincipled or immoral about putting those judgments of cost and benefit into law.
of what reasoned principle allows voters to limit anyone’s wealth (“you can only have so much and no more”)and not be equally arbitrary with others in a different context, “No, you can’t vote. No, you can’t have an abortion.”)
I’m only dimly able to even see your objection here.
I mean, let’s turn the question around: What principle allows a government to restrict anyone to merely one vote when their intelligence, ambition or resources might allow them to wield so many more?
If that seems like a silly question, then perhaps you can see my perspective on yours. ‘You can only have so much and not more’ is actually kind of a fundamental principle of democracy.
And of course the original question you asked was why voters could not say that black people could not vote. To which the answer is obviously the principle of equal protection. We (finally) figured out that there’s no valid reason for the government to distinguish between black people and other sorts of people for the purposes of civic participation, so we (in theory, if not in practice) don’t.
Interestingly, that doesn’t automatically extend to other kinds of restrictions on voting. We don’t (yet) extend the franchise to children under the age of 18, for example. Equal protection doesn’t apply because
we collectively allow that there are (arguably) legitimate reasons to not want young children to vote. The voters, through their representatives, certainly could decide to change this age — either down, or, indeed up, or remove it entirely — and I don’t think there’s any a priori reason to think that such changes would be immoral.
And that’s for a fundamental modification of the franchise.
Changes in property and tax law seem rather more easily justifiable.
Certainly, I would agree that anyone wanting to make such a change should present a positive case for it, but that’s exactly the argument being made here. I think there are indeed a variety of reasons to think that ‘excessive’ wealth and income are indeed negative drains on society.
Assuming enough others agree, there isn’t anything remotely unprincipled or immoral about putting those judgments of cost and benefit into law.
If McKinney was just trolling, you might have a point. But my sense is that he is doing no such thing.
Thank you for this. Much appreciated.
Of course privately owned companies could be larger than the individual wealth cap. Just no individually owned private companies.
Ok, I see your point, but you’re really making my point. If Henry Ford or Sam Walton or Bill Gates had decided to not incorporate, how large would their companies be? No larger than the amount the voters would allow an individual to keep.
or that the cap is on personal income, not necessarily business capital, etc.
I’m pretty sure there is no meaningful distinction between the two, “business capital” not being a recognized term of art or accounting concept AFAIK.
Courts?
Built by the private sector, paid for with public funds. Ditto the pens, paper, computers, etc. Good try, though.
What if we just capped individual wealth at death via a 100% estate tax over amount X?
It would be problematic for several reasons but I’m not nearly sophisticated enough in economics to do more than give some examples of the downside. Let’s assume an estate cap of 25M. Let’s further assume an estate of 250M, of which 200M is a going business concern employing 300 well paid employees. If the government imposes a 100% tax on that business, it would have to be sold or broken up to pay the tax. I’m not sure what good comes of that. That’s my one example, off the top of my head.
If McKinney was just trolling, you might have a point. But my sense is that he is doing no such thing.
Thank you for this. Much appreciated.
Of course privately owned companies could be larger than the individual wealth cap. Just no individually owned private companies.
Ok, I see your point, but you’re really making my point. If Henry Ford or Sam Walton or Bill Gates had decided to not incorporate, how large would their companies be? No larger than the amount the voters would allow an individual to keep.
or that the cap is on personal income, not necessarily business capital, etc.
I’m pretty sure there is no meaningful distinction between the two, “business capital” not being a recognized term of art or accounting concept AFAIK.
Courts?
Built by the private sector, paid for with public funds. Ditto the pens, paper, computers, etc. Good try, though.
What if we just capped individual wealth at death via a 100% estate tax over amount X?
It would be problematic for several reasons but I’m not nearly sophisticated enough in economics to do more than give some examples of the downside. Let’s assume an estate cap of 25M. Let’s further assume an estate of 250M, of which 200M is a going business concern employing 300 well paid employees. If the government imposes a 100% tax on that business, it would have to be sold or broken up to pay the tax. I’m not sure what good comes of that. That’s my one example, off the top of my head.
Big surprise: I think taking it on ourselves to limit what someone can otherwise legally do is problematic, to say the least. Counterproductive from a policy standpoint, and problematic from a personal freedom standpoint.
Question for you: When driving down the freeway, what is the maximum speed you go?
I’m betting (at least if Texas freeways are anything like those in California) there are long stretches where going 10, 20, or even 30 mph over the posted limit doesn’t pose any real safety hazard. But are those speed limits some kind of affront to your personal freedom? Are they legally problematic?
Sure, you and your fellow drivers may ignore them on occasion. (Here, the long freeways run 10-15 mph above the posted limits.) But if you get a ticket for doing so, are you affronted?
And if not, how would money be any different, from a legal stantpoint, from speed?
Big surprise: I think taking it on ourselves to limit what someone can otherwise legally do is problematic, to say the least. Counterproductive from a policy standpoint, and problematic from a personal freedom standpoint.
Question for you: When driving down the freeway, what is the maximum speed you go?
I’m betting (at least if Texas freeways are anything like those in California) there are long stretches where going 10, 20, or even 30 mph over the posted limit doesn’t pose any real safety hazard. But are those speed limits some kind of affront to your personal freedom? Are they legally problematic?
Sure, you and your fellow drivers may ignore them on occasion. (Here, the long freeways run 10-15 mph above the posted limits.) But if you get a ticket for doing so, are you affronted?
And if not, how would money be any different, from a legal stantpoint, from speed?
Now that’s a true but exceptionally silly argument.
If we “capped” every American at $1 million of annual income, we would be capping GDP at $300 trillion.
If we “capped” every American at $1 billion of net worth, we would be capping US wealth at … well, you do the math
Silly is subjective. Yes, if every citizen, newborn through hospice had 1M, you would be correct; however, children don’t work and therefore can’t make a living and the only way for an adult to accumulate 1M is to have a job that allows for saving that amount after taxes. There won’t be an employer who can pay those wages because the employer is likewise capped out. So, maybe not so silly.
Now that’s a true but exceptionally silly argument.
If we “capped” every American at $1 million of annual income, we would be capping GDP at $300 trillion.
If we “capped” every American at $1 billion of net worth, we would be capping US wealth at … well, you do the math
Silly is subjective. Yes, if every citizen, newborn through hospice had 1M, you would be correct; however, children don’t work and therefore can’t make a living and the only way for an adult to accumulate 1M is to have a job that allows for saving that amount after taxes. There won’t be an employer who can pay those wages because the employer is likewise capped out. So, maybe not so silly.
Courts?
Built by the private sector, paid for with public funds. Ditto the pens, paper, computers, etc. Good try, though.
Brilliant evasion, counselor! But you know darned well he meant the courts as an institution, not the physical plant.
Courts?
Built by the private sector, paid for with public funds. Ditto the pens, paper, computers, etc. Good try, though.
Brilliant evasion, counselor! But you know darned well he meant the courts as an institution, not the physical plant.
If we “capped” every American at $1 million of annual income, we would be capping GDP at $300 trillion.
per year, no less.
If we “capped” every American at $1 million of annual income, we would be capping GDP at $300 trillion.
per year, no less.
The good would be to break up dynastic and concentrated wealth. Which is not inherently an evil all by itself, but what I think is driving part of this discussion is the use to which the wealth is put, or could be put.
I’m not sure why the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. generation of Fords, Rockefellers, Hiltons, Marriotts, Goodyears, Lauders, Pritzkers, Kennedys, etc. living on Grandpa/ma’s or older’s money does any good either.
And honestly, in today’s environment, having to sell the business shouldn’t be an issue, at least from an ability to get the cash standpoint. The business could continue as a going concern, 300 employees and all.
The good would be to break up dynastic and concentrated wealth. Which is not inherently an evil all by itself, but what I think is driving part of this discussion is the use to which the wealth is put, or could be put.
I’m not sure why the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. generation of Fords, Rockefellers, Hiltons, Marriotts, Goodyears, Lauders, Pritzkers, Kennedys, etc. living on Grandpa/ma’s or older’s money does any good either.
And honestly, in today’s environment, having to sell the business shouldn’t be an issue, at least from an ability to get the cash standpoint. The business could continue as a going concern, 300 employees and all.
If Henry Ford or Sam Walton or Bill Gates had decided to not incorporate, how large would their companies be? No larger than the amount the voters would allow an individual to keep.
I think many here might see that as something that goes in the plus column for the proposal, not the minus column.
All you’re really arguing there is that a radically different arrangement of wealth distribution would not result in a world that looks like the status quo.
To which the reply is: no duh.
The interesting argument is whether this alternative path is worse in some way, particularly for the average person, either worker or businessman, who is not a Gates or a Walton. You’re not presenting a case on that front either way.
I’m pretty sure there is no meaningful distinction between the two, “business capital” not being a recognized term of art or accounting concept AFAIK.
Well, for starters, one is a flow, and one is a stock. But wj’s reply of 2:39 is basically what I was getting at, and probably clearer about it.
If the government imposes a 100% tax on that business, it would have to be sold or broken up to pay the tax. I’m not sure what good comes of that. That’s my one example, off the top of my head.
Pro: a bunch of revenue to do things with for the public
Pro: heirs who need to actually do something productive rather than live off the residue of something someone else did.
Cons: None in particular that I can see.
If Henry Ford or Sam Walton or Bill Gates had decided to not incorporate, how large would their companies be? No larger than the amount the voters would allow an individual to keep.
I think many here might see that as something that goes in the plus column for the proposal, not the minus column.
All you’re really arguing there is that a radically different arrangement of wealth distribution would not result in a world that looks like the status quo.
To which the reply is: no duh.
The interesting argument is whether this alternative path is worse in some way, particularly for the average person, either worker or businessman, who is not a Gates or a Walton. You’re not presenting a case on that front either way.
I’m pretty sure there is no meaningful distinction between the two, “business capital” not being a recognized term of art or accounting concept AFAIK.
Well, for starters, one is a flow, and one is a stock. But wj’s reply of 2:39 is basically what I was getting at, and probably clearer about it.
If the government imposes a 100% tax on that business, it would have to be sold or broken up to pay the tax. I’m not sure what good comes of that. That’s my one example, off the top of my head.
Pro: a bunch of revenue to do things with for the public
Pro: heirs who need to actually do something productive rather than live off the residue of something someone else did.
Cons: None in particular that I can see.
Let’s assume an estate cap of 25M. Let’s further assume an estate of 250M, of which 200M is a going business concern employing 300 well paid employees. If the government imposes a 100% tax on that business, it would have to be sold or broken up to pay the tax.
Clearly you aren’t talking about the kind of business which is a one-man show — regardless of how many assistants he has. Because if you were, it would be out of business anyway with his demise.
But if it isn’t that kind of one man show, it can keep running without him. Which means that there is no reason to break it up. Any more than you call in the wreckers for his house if his heirs are not going to live there.
Maybe it takes a while for that kind of estate sale to get organized and executed. But since the business can keep running without him, it just keeps piling up value until the sale finally happens.
Let’s assume an estate cap of 25M. Let’s further assume an estate of 250M, of which 200M is a going business concern employing 300 well paid employees. If the government imposes a 100% tax on that business, it would have to be sold or broken up to pay the tax.
Clearly you aren’t talking about the kind of business which is a one-man show — regardless of how many assistants he has. Because if you were, it would be out of business anyway with his demise.
But if it isn’t that kind of one man show, it can keep running without him. Which means that there is no reason to break it up. Any more than you call in the wreckers for his house if his heirs are not going to live there.
Maybe it takes a while for that kind of estate sale to get organized and executed. But since the business can keep running without him, it just keeps piling up value until the sale finally happens.
The wealth isn’t fictional but its evaluation may be since a large component of things like stock prices are based on expectations, not current value.
This strikes me as a distinction without a difference.
The wealth isn’t fictional but its evaluation may be since a large component of things like stock prices are based on expectations, not current value.
This strikes me as a distinction without a difference.
McKinney,
Some “going business concern employing 300 well-paid employees” probably gets sold every day of the week in the US. What’s the big whoop?
“What good comes of that”? The $225M tax revenue that you postulate becomes available to pay “the private sector” to build a courthouse you can practice in. Off the top of my head.
–TP
McKinney,
Some “going business concern employing 300 well-paid employees” probably gets sold every day of the week in the US. What’s the big whoop?
“What good comes of that”? The $225M tax revenue that you postulate becomes available to pay “the private sector” to build a courthouse you can practice in. Off the top of my head.
–TP
And Ugh got there first.
And Ugh got there first.
Question for you: When driving down the freeway, what is the maximum speed you go?
8-9 over the posted limit, assuming daylight driving, no rain and good visibility. I adjust downward as conditions warrant. DPS almost never stops anyone within 10 MPH of the posted limit.
I’m betting (at least if Texas freeways are anything like those in California) there are long stretches where going 10, 20, or even 30 mph over the posted limit doesn’t pose any real safety hazard. But are those speed limits some kind of affront to your personal freedom?
Not at all–it isn’t my road. It belongs to the state for the benefit of the traveling public to whom I owe a common law and statutory duty of care not to cause an accident by driving at an unsafe speed.
Are they legally problematic?
Not even remotely. A drivers license is precisely what it says it is: a license to drive on publicly owned and maintained roads. A condition of the license is compliance with the rules laid down by the owner, i.e. the state or subdivision thereof.
Sure, you and your fellow drivers may ignore them on occasion. (Here, the long freeways run 10-15 mph above the posted limits.) But if you get a ticket for doing so, are you affronted?
I don’t like getting tickets, but I’ve never gotten one I didn’t deserve.
And if not, how would money be any different, from a legal stantpoint, from speed?
I earned the money legally and paid the tax on it, therefore it is mine. Having that money puts no one at risk. It harms no one. If I had an airplane, I could fly it as fast as it would go. The only reason for speed limits is to protect people from each other and themselves. And, speed limits apply to everyone equally.
I could probably list more differences, but this is a fair representation.
Question for you: When driving down the freeway, what is the maximum speed you go?
8-9 over the posted limit, assuming daylight driving, no rain and good visibility. I adjust downward as conditions warrant. DPS almost never stops anyone within 10 MPH of the posted limit.
I’m betting (at least if Texas freeways are anything like those in California) there are long stretches where going 10, 20, or even 30 mph over the posted limit doesn’t pose any real safety hazard. But are those speed limits some kind of affront to your personal freedom?
Not at all–it isn’t my road. It belongs to the state for the benefit of the traveling public to whom I owe a common law and statutory duty of care not to cause an accident by driving at an unsafe speed.
Are they legally problematic?
Not even remotely. A drivers license is precisely what it says it is: a license to drive on publicly owned and maintained roads. A condition of the license is compliance with the rules laid down by the owner, i.e. the state or subdivision thereof.
Sure, you and your fellow drivers may ignore them on occasion. (Here, the long freeways run 10-15 mph above the posted limits.) But if you get a ticket for doing so, are you affronted?
I don’t like getting tickets, but I’ve never gotten one I didn’t deserve.
And if not, how would money be any different, from a legal stantpoint, from speed?
I earned the money legally and paid the tax on it, therefore it is mine. Having that money puts no one at risk. It harms no one. If I had an airplane, I could fly it as fast as it would go. The only reason for speed limits is to protect people from each other and themselves. And, speed limits apply to everyone equally.
I could probably list more differences, but this is a fair representation.
I earned the money legally and paid the tax on it, therefore it is mine. Having that money puts no one at risk. It harms no one.
These are sort of the facts under debate though, aren’t they?
I earned the money legally and paid the tax on it, therefore it is mine. Having that money puts no one at risk. It harms no one.
These are sort of the facts under debate though, aren’t they?
Not at all–it isn’t my road. It belongs to the state
And that money doesn’t belong to you personally either. Cf the penalties for deliberately destroying the currency (nevermind counterfeiting).
Indeed, the entire (private) money is an artifact of the government.** And doesn’t function without it.
** Yes, there was a time when there was private coinage. (Or coinage by multiple tiny governments.) Didn’t work well, even with the small economies of the day — see the costs of an entire industry of money changers. Wouldn’t work even more so now.
Not at all–it isn’t my road. It belongs to the state
And that money doesn’t belong to you personally either. Cf the penalties for deliberately destroying the currency (nevermind counterfeiting).
Indeed, the entire (private) money is an artifact of the government.** And doesn’t function without it.
** Yes, there was a time when there was private coinage. (Or coinage by multiple tiny governments.) Didn’t work well, even with the small economies of the day — see the costs of an entire industry of money changers. Wouldn’t work even more so now.
The lack of transfer payments to achieve pareto efficiency is a big problem here
The lack of transfer payments to achieve pareto efficiency is a big problem here
McTX: … the only way for an adult to accumulate 1M is to have a job that allows for saving that amount after taxes.
“Accumulate 1M” is either a typo on your part, or a misunderstanding of the difference between $1M annual income and $1B accumulated wealth.
Anyway, I’d still be interested in your views on the NFL owners’ mandatory-“patriotism” rule in the context of capitalism, concentrated wealth, free markets, and so forth.
–TP
McTX: … the only way for an adult to accumulate 1M is to have a job that allows for saving that amount after taxes.
“Accumulate 1M” is either a typo on your part, or a misunderstanding of the difference between $1M annual income and $1B accumulated wealth.
Anyway, I’d still be interested in your views on the NFL owners’ mandatory-“patriotism” rule in the context of capitalism, concentrated wealth, free markets, and so forth.
–TP
Having that money puts no one at risk. It harms no one.
Looks like you are making a moral claim, not a political or economic one?
Having that money puts no one at risk. It harms no one.
Looks like you are making a moral claim, not a political or economic one?
This strikes me as a distinction without a difference.
“Wealth is determined by taking the total market value of all physical and intangible assets owned, then subtracting all debts. Essentially, wealth is the accumulation of resources.”
Perhaps. Are stock prices the market value of the resources they represent? Or the expected future market value of the resources?
This strikes me as a distinction without a difference.
“Wealth is determined by taking the total market value of all physical and intangible assets owned, then subtracting all debts. Essentially, wealth is the accumulation of resources.”
Perhaps. Are stock prices the market value of the resources they represent? Or the expected future market value of the resources?
Post entitled “enough” on the day Obama and Netflix announced their long term deal (without revealing the terms, because the terms are I suppose really complicated…1st refusal, int’l rights…and for tax reasons. Media projects are great tax shelters.)
Forget it folks. We are riding this train all the way to hell.
Post entitled “enough” on the day Obama and Netflix announced their long term deal (without revealing the terms, because the terms are I suppose really complicated…1st refusal, int’l rights…and for tax reasons. Media projects are great tax shelters.)
Forget it folks. We are riding this train all the way to hell.
Brilliant evasion, counselor! But you know darned well he meant the courts as an institution, not the physical plant.
Ok, but if you read my many comments, I have repeatedly referred to tangible products or items produced by human beings. A court is not a tangible item produced by human beings, or at least not as I am trying to frame my arguments. A court is a judge empowered to try matters within the court’s jurisdiction, which is a human being. A case could be tried anywhere, including under a tree.
The good would be to break up dynastic and concentrated wealth. Which is not inherently an evil all by itself, but what I think is driving part of this discussion is the use to which the wealth is put, or could be put.
I’m not sure why the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. generation of Fords, Rockefellers, Hiltons, Marriotts, Goodyears, Lauders, Pritzkers, Kennedys, etc. living on Grandpa/ma’s or older’s money does any good either.
And honestly, in today’s environment, having to sell the business shouldn’t be an issue, at least from an ability to get the cash standpoint. The business could continue as a going concern, 300 employees and all.
Well, several things. First,we’re talking about a going concern. I picked that for a reason. The Kennedy’s aren’t operating the family business. They sit back and collect from a trust. In my example, because of our hypothetical estate tax, if we add to the fact pattern that it is a family business, the family cannot continue to own the business, if that is what it chooses to do. Because we’ve decided that having too much is a bad thing, we now require that someone else own that company. Seems coercive and arbitrary to me.
Some “going business concern employing 300 well-paid employees” probably gets sold every day of the week in the US. What’s the big whoop?
It could be highly problematic for the 300 employees. Because it’s a forced sale, the value will be diminished. But, to the larger point, I began my answer by saying I’m not sufficiently sophisticated to give a solid answer. I intuit it would be problematic on a macro basis but I can’t document my position because I lack the knowledge to do so.
What good comes of that”? The $225M tax revenue that you postulate becomes available to pay “the private sector” to build a courthouse you can practice in. Off the top of my head.
I think a similar point was made some years back, the subtext being that I’m a beneficiary of the very system I criticize. Leaving aside my much repeated consent to a 40% tax bracket and my equally clear position that I’m fine with most if not all traditional governmental roles, at best, courthouses are to trial lawyers what highways are to anyone who has to travel from point A to point B to make their living. But even that takes it too far: Courthouses are not for lawyers. They are for courts. I think this number is close to correct, only about 10% of us do civil litigation. Courthouses exist, primarily to give criminal defendants a trial under law and secondarily to give citizens a forum in which they can, if they choose, enforce their civil, legal rights against other citizens or the state. Hiring a lawyer is optional for natural persons. Advisable but optional. Every natural person has the right to act pro se.
Brilliant evasion, counselor! But you know darned well he meant the courts as an institution, not the physical plant.
Ok, but if you read my many comments, I have repeatedly referred to tangible products or items produced by human beings. A court is not a tangible item produced by human beings, or at least not as I am trying to frame my arguments. A court is a judge empowered to try matters within the court’s jurisdiction, which is a human being. A case could be tried anywhere, including under a tree.
The good would be to break up dynastic and concentrated wealth. Which is not inherently an evil all by itself, but what I think is driving part of this discussion is the use to which the wealth is put, or could be put.
I’m not sure why the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. generation of Fords, Rockefellers, Hiltons, Marriotts, Goodyears, Lauders, Pritzkers, Kennedys, etc. living on Grandpa/ma’s or older’s money does any good either.
And honestly, in today’s environment, having to sell the business shouldn’t be an issue, at least from an ability to get the cash standpoint. The business could continue as a going concern, 300 employees and all.
Well, several things. First,we’re talking about a going concern. I picked that for a reason. The Kennedy’s aren’t operating the family business. They sit back and collect from a trust. In my example, because of our hypothetical estate tax, if we add to the fact pattern that it is a family business, the family cannot continue to own the business, if that is what it chooses to do. Because we’ve decided that having too much is a bad thing, we now require that someone else own that company. Seems coercive and arbitrary to me.
Some “going business concern employing 300 well-paid employees” probably gets sold every day of the week in the US. What’s the big whoop?
It could be highly problematic for the 300 employees. Because it’s a forced sale, the value will be diminished. But, to the larger point, I began my answer by saying I’m not sufficiently sophisticated to give a solid answer. I intuit it would be problematic on a macro basis but I can’t document my position because I lack the knowledge to do so.
What good comes of that”? The $225M tax revenue that you postulate becomes available to pay “the private sector” to build a courthouse you can practice in. Off the top of my head.
I think a similar point was made some years back, the subtext being that I’m a beneficiary of the very system I criticize. Leaving aside my much repeated consent to a 40% tax bracket and my equally clear position that I’m fine with most if not all traditional governmental roles, at best, courthouses are to trial lawyers what highways are to anyone who has to travel from point A to point B to make their living. But even that takes it too far: Courthouses are not for lawyers. They are for courts. I think this number is close to correct, only about 10% of us do civil litigation. Courthouses exist, primarily to give criminal defendants a trial under law and secondarily to give citizens a forum in which they can, if they choose, enforce their civil, legal rights against other citizens or the state. Hiring a lawyer is optional for natural persons. Advisable but optional. Every natural person has the right to act pro se.
I’m just going to copy and paste something I wrote earlier, since it seems to have found new currency (no pun intended!).
To expand a bit on the tax-rate thing, I would also make the argument that no one would be accumulating the sort of wealth they can in the ways they can in the first place without a functioning system of government in place and all the underpinnings the government provides, so it’s justifiable for the government to limit (or at least tax heavily at some point) the income or wealth someone might only attain with the government’s infrastructure and institutions in place.
I’m just going to copy and paste something I wrote earlier, since it seems to have found new currency (no pun intended!).
To expand a bit on the tax-rate thing, I would also make the argument that no one would be accumulating the sort of wealth they can in the ways they can in the first place without a functioning system of government in place and all the underpinnings the government provides, so it’s justifiable for the government to limit (or at least tax heavily at some point) the income or wealth someone might only attain with the government’s infrastructure and institutions in place.
So, really, what is yours when you’re on the road is your car, but not the road. The speed limit applies to anyone on the road, even in their own car – the car they obtained with their own money (wj’s comment about that notwithstanding).
Maybe I don’t need to finish the analogy. If it’s not clear, I will be happy to provide the second half on request.
So, really, what is yours when you’re on the road is your car, but not the road. The speed limit applies to anyone on the road, even in their own car – the car they obtained with their own money (wj’s comment about that notwithstanding).
Maybe I don’t need to finish the analogy. If it’s not clear, I will be happy to provide the second half on request.
And that money doesn’t belong to you personally either. Cf the penalties for deliberately destroying the currency (nevermind counterfeiting).
There’s a difference between the ownership of physical bills and the ownership of the stored value they represent.
And that money doesn’t belong to you personally either. Cf the penalties for deliberately destroying the currency (nevermind counterfeiting).
There’s a difference between the ownership of physical bills and the ownership of the stored value they represent.
There’s a difference between the ownership of physical bills and the ownership of the stored value they represent.
I confess that my economics classes were quite a while back. But I’m not sure you can really separate money’s medium of exchange function from its store of value function in the way this suggests.
There’s a difference between the ownership of physical bills and the ownership of the stored value they represent.
I confess that my economics classes were quite a while back. But I’m not sure you can really separate money’s medium of exchange function from its store of value function in the way this suggests.
These are sort of the facts under debate though, aren’t they?
Really? It isn’t my money? I’m harming others by having it? Would you mind explaining?
And that money doesn’t belong to you personally either.
This is a bit of a reach. First, like most people, my ‘money’ is a computer entry in a bank or other institutional account. It’s mine. It’s not yours, it’s not the governments. Your point about destroying ‘bills’ falls short, IMO, because the crime isn’t based on whether the money belongs to me or the gov’t, it’s that the government produced the tangible bill itself at some cost and it puts into circulation a set amount and wants that amount to remain in circulation.
The lack of transfer payments to achieve pareto efficiency is a big problem here
Not following. Sorry.
Anyway, I’d still be interested in your views on the NFL owners’ mandatory-“patriotism” rule in the context of capitalism, concentrated wealth, free markets, and so forth.
One has nothing to do with the other. The employer gets to make the workplace rules. I’m not a big fan of sports franchises for many of the reasons others here don’t care for them. I don’t like subsidizing an already wealthy person or persons with my tax dollars so they can have a football or basketball team to make more money off of. Do it on their own? Fine by me. Involuntary loan from me? No thanks. I don’t care much for players politicizing what should be a neutral zone for folks to come together. My response was to drop the NFL, like a lot of other people. If enough people drop the NFL, the owners can go belly up and the players can find out what minimum wage work is like.
Since you asked.
Looks like you are making a moral claim, not a political or economic one?
I thought it was a factual claim.
These are sort of the facts under debate though, aren’t they?
Really? It isn’t my money? I’m harming others by having it? Would you mind explaining?
And that money doesn’t belong to you personally either.
This is a bit of a reach. First, like most people, my ‘money’ is a computer entry in a bank or other institutional account. It’s mine. It’s not yours, it’s not the governments. Your point about destroying ‘bills’ falls short, IMO, because the crime isn’t based on whether the money belongs to me or the gov’t, it’s that the government produced the tangible bill itself at some cost and it puts into circulation a set amount and wants that amount to remain in circulation.
The lack of transfer payments to achieve pareto efficiency is a big problem here
Not following. Sorry.
Anyway, I’d still be interested in your views on the NFL owners’ mandatory-“patriotism” rule in the context of capitalism, concentrated wealth, free markets, and so forth.
One has nothing to do with the other. The employer gets to make the workplace rules. I’m not a big fan of sports franchises for many of the reasons others here don’t care for them. I don’t like subsidizing an already wealthy person or persons with my tax dollars so they can have a football or basketball team to make more money off of. Do it on their own? Fine by me. Involuntary loan from me? No thanks. I don’t care much for players politicizing what should be a neutral zone for folks to come together. My response was to drop the NFL, like a lot of other people. If enough people drop the NFL, the owners can go belly up and the players can find out what minimum wage work is like.
Since you asked.
Looks like you are making a moral claim, not a political or economic one?
I thought it was a factual claim.
McKinney: First,we’re talking about a going concern. I picked that for a reason. The Kennedy’s aren’t operating the family business. They sit back and collect from a trust. In my example, because of our hypothetical estate tax, if we add to the fact pattern that it is a family business, the family cannot continue to own the business, if that is what it chooses to do. Because we’ve decided that having too much is a bad thing, we now require that someone else own that company. Seems coercive and arbitrary to me.
So are you saying the people who own the going concern, operating business have a stronger moral claim to their wealth because it’s in that form rather than a trust that owns a bunch of financial assets?
Why wouldn’t an estate tax on each be equally coercive and arbitrary?
I’m not sure I even disagree, and I think the macroeconomic case is that higher rates of estate taxes lead to less capital formation, and thus less aggregate wealth, “in the long run,” but that’s only the economics.
McKinney: First,we’re talking about a going concern. I picked that for a reason. The Kennedy’s aren’t operating the family business. They sit back and collect from a trust. In my example, because of our hypothetical estate tax, if we add to the fact pattern that it is a family business, the family cannot continue to own the business, if that is what it chooses to do. Because we’ve decided that having too much is a bad thing, we now require that someone else own that company. Seems coercive and arbitrary to me.
So are you saying the people who own the going concern, operating business have a stronger moral claim to their wealth because it’s in that form rather than a trust that owns a bunch of financial assets?
Why wouldn’t an estate tax on each be equally coercive and arbitrary?
I’m not sure I even disagree, and I think the macroeconomic case is that higher rates of estate taxes lead to less capital formation, and thus less aggregate wealth, “in the long run,” but that’s only the economics.
I think a similar point was made some years back, the subtext being that I’m a beneficiary of the very system I criticize.
Not just you. Everyone. Walmart doesn’t happen without roads. People can’t trust financial institutions without regulation. I can buy a can of peas at a supermarket without knowing anything about where they came from or who put them in the can. I feel safe enough about my and the other vehicles on the road that I’m willing to drive to work. Cell phones work because someone’s making sure the companies don’t screw up each other’s signals. I drink tap water. I’m not particularly worried about the wiring in my house starting a fire, so I use it. I don’t think the building I work in is going to fall down, and I’m willing to ride the elevator.
I think a similar point was made some years back, the subtext being that I’m a beneficiary of the very system I criticize.
Not just you. Everyone. Walmart doesn’t happen without roads. People can’t trust financial institutions without regulation. I can buy a can of peas at a supermarket without knowing anything about where they came from or who put them in the can. I feel safe enough about my and the other vehicles on the road that I’m willing to drive to work. Cell phones work because someone’s making sure the companies don’t screw up each other’s signals. I drink tap water. I’m not particularly worried about the wiring in my house starting a fire, so I use it. I don’t think the building I work in is going to fall down, and I’m willing to ride the elevator.
Not following. Sorry.
Not sure I’m capable of following my ownself, these days. 🙂
Not following. Sorry.
Not sure I’m capable of following my ownself, these days. 🙂
To expand a bit on the tax-rate thing, I would also make the argument that no one would be accumulating the sort of wealth they can in the ways they can in the first place without a functioning system of government in place and all the underpinnings the government provides, so it’s justifiable for the government to limit (or at least tax heavily at some point) the income or wealth someone might only attain with the government’s infrastructure and institutions in place.
Seems to me the operative phrase is “a functioning system of government in place and all the underpinnings the government provides” and the intent of your statement can be restated as follows, “government creates the opportunity to make money, therefore, the government has the moral right to limit the amount of money someone might make or keep”?
Do I have this right? If I do, I’ll comment further. If not, what am I missing?
To expand a bit on the tax-rate thing, I would also make the argument that no one would be accumulating the sort of wealth they can in the ways they can in the first place without a functioning system of government in place and all the underpinnings the government provides, so it’s justifiable for the government to limit (or at least tax heavily at some point) the income or wealth someone might only attain with the government’s infrastructure and institutions in place.
Seems to me the operative phrase is “a functioning system of government in place and all the underpinnings the government provides” and the intent of your statement can be restated as follows, “government creates the opportunity to make money, therefore, the government has the moral right to limit the amount of money someone might make or keep”?
Do I have this right? If I do, I’ll comment further. If not, what am I missing?
The lack of transfer payments to achieve pareto efficiency is a big problem here
Pareto efficiency would seem to be in conflict with the Pareto principle which seems to hold for wealth distrubution.
The lack of transfer payments to achieve pareto efficiency is a big problem here
Pareto efficiency would seem to be in conflict with the Pareto principle which seems to hold for wealth distrubution.
Do I have this right? If I do, I’ll comment further.
Provided it has a compelling interest to do so, yes. What I think we’re discussing is whether that compelling interest exists. Of course, that would depend on the specifics of what that government wants to do (if I can put it terms of the government having desire and agency for the sake of brevity), which is a more practical question, along the lines of “does it promote the general welfare?”.
Do I have this right? If I do, I’ll comment further.
Provided it has a compelling interest to do so, yes. What I think we’re discussing is whether that compelling interest exists. Of course, that would depend on the specifics of what that government wants to do (if I can put it terms of the government having desire and agency for the sake of brevity), which is a more practical question, along the lines of “does it promote the general welfare?”.
Pareto efficiency is the state of the world where you can’t make someone better off w/o making someone else worse off.
If you *can* make better off w/o making someone worse off, then you are not Pareto efficient and it would be better to make that person better off b/c, who the hell else cares?
On transfer payments, assume a situation where you can make person X $100 richer by doing ABC, but if you do ABC it would make person Y $75 poorer – yet together X&Y are $25 richer. So, X could transfer $76 of its improvement to Y and they are both better off (Y by $1 and X by $24). So, ABC should be done.
The issue is, in the real world, the $76 transfer is often, if not the vast majority of the time, never made. So person Y is pissed and person X happy, which creates other societal issues. See also – declining marginal utility of income.
This kind of thing comes up in gains from trade analysis.
Pareto efficiency is the state of the world where you can’t make someone better off w/o making someone else worse off.
If you *can* make better off w/o making someone worse off, then you are not Pareto efficient and it would be better to make that person better off b/c, who the hell else cares?
On transfer payments, assume a situation where you can make person X $100 richer by doing ABC, but if you do ABC it would make person Y $75 poorer – yet together X&Y are $25 richer. So, X could transfer $76 of its improvement to Y and they are both better off (Y by $1 and X by $24). So, ABC should be done.
The issue is, in the real world, the $76 transfer is often, if not the vast majority of the time, never made. So person Y is pissed and person X happy, which creates other societal issues. See also – declining marginal utility of income.
This kind of thing comes up in gains from trade analysis.
…the government has the moral right to limit the amount of money someone might make or keep”?
Though I would take “someone” not to mean a particular person, rather what anyone might keep, with everyone subject to the same set of rules. I’d also say that we’re again talking about whether taxation in general is morally wrong, not what rates should apply and when.
…the government has the moral right to limit the amount of money someone might make or keep”?
Though I would take “someone” not to mean a particular person, rather what anyone might keep, with everyone subject to the same set of rules. I’d also say that we’re again talking about whether taxation in general is morally wrong, not what rates should apply and when.
So are you saying the people who own the going concern, operating business have a stronger moral claim to their wealth because it’s in that form rather than a trust that owns a bunch of financial assets?
Why wouldn’t an estate tax on each be equally coercive and arbitrary?
I’m not sure I even disagree, and I think the macroeconomic case is that higher rates of estate taxes lead to less capital formation, and thus less aggregate wealth, “in the long run,” but that’s only the economics.
I find all of it coercive and arbitrary beyond a certain point. I previously asked, or intended to ask (don’t want to start lying again) ‘what principle allows voters to limit what a citizen can make or keep but prevents voters from limiting abortion or the right of others (blacks, just to make the point) to vote?’ and got no takers, or at least none that I noticed. Apologies to anyone I overlooked.
The answer is, there isn’t one, or at least no one that holds up under analysis. Instead, we have a constitution that limits voters and if there isn’t a constitutional limit, voters can do whatever they damn well please. Which gets me back to my question. I chose abortion and black suffrage for a reason. The former is constitutionally protected until the court composition changes, the latter is in the express language of the constitution. Before everyone gets all worked up over the wisdom of the voters, think about what you want voters doing after Roe gets pitched, assuming that happens someday.
Not just you. Everyone. Walmart doesn’t happen without roads.
Right. We need government. However, some here seem to argue that, having consented to government in some form, people like me have necessarily consented to government in virtually every form. I’m a big fan of constitutionally limited government.
So are you saying the people who own the going concern, operating business have a stronger moral claim to their wealth because it’s in that form rather than a trust that owns a bunch of financial assets?
Why wouldn’t an estate tax on each be equally coercive and arbitrary?
I’m not sure I even disagree, and I think the macroeconomic case is that higher rates of estate taxes lead to less capital formation, and thus less aggregate wealth, “in the long run,” but that’s only the economics.
I find all of it coercive and arbitrary beyond a certain point. I previously asked, or intended to ask (don’t want to start lying again) ‘what principle allows voters to limit what a citizen can make or keep but prevents voters from limiting abortion or the right of others (blacks, just to make the point) to vote?’ and got no takers, or at least none that I noticed. Apologies to anyone I overlooked.
The answer is, there isn’t one, or at least no one that holds up under analysis. Instead, we have a constitution that limits voters and if there isn’t a constitutional limit, voters can do whatever they damn well please. Which gets me back to my question. I chose abortion and black suffrage for a reason. The former is constitutionally protected until the court composition changes, the latter is in the express language of the constitution. Before everyone gets all worked up over the wisdom of the voters, think about what you want voters doing after Roe gets pitched, assuming that happens someday.
Not just you. Everyone. Walmart doesn’t happen without roads.
Right. We need government. However, some here seem to argue that, having consented to government in some form, people like me have necessarily consented to government in virtually every form. I’m a big fan of constitutionally limited government.
Ugh,
I have no clue what “assets” are “in trust” for the descendants of old Joe Kennedy, but I suspect they include stocks, i.e. shares of ownership in “going business concerns”. Especially if we subscribe to the notion that “capital” is what makes “going business concerns” possible, so that they can manufacture jobs, I think “financial instruments” are no more and no less virtuous than any “family business”.
McTX: The employer gets to make the workplace rules.
True. And that’s what makes concentrations of wealth inimical to democracy. Left to itself, The Free Market can winnow “employers” down to a small cabal of workplace-rule setters whose notions of “patriotism” among other things may be entirely distasteful to job-consuming working stiffs like you and me.
–TP
Ugh,
I have no clue what “assets” are “in trust” for the descendants of old Joe Kennedy, but I suspect they include stocks, i.e. shares of ownership in “going business concerns”. Especially if we subscribe to the notion that “capital” is what makes “going business concerns” possible, so that they can manufacture jobs, I think “financial instruments” are no more and no less virtuous than any “family business”.
McTX: The employer gets to make the workplace rules.
True. And that’s what makes concentrations of wealth inimical to democracy. Left to itself, The Free Market can winnow “employers” down to a small cabal of workplace-rule setters whose notions of “patriotism” among other things may be entirely distasteful to job-consuming working stiffs like you and me.
–TP
…having consented to government in some form, people like me have necessarily consented to government in virtually every form.
How so? Who here is suggesting you should be summarily executed (or whatever)? We’re talking about tax rates on really high incomes. And why is it people like you, particularly? Like you in what way?
…having consented to government in some form, people like me have necessarily consented to government in virtually every form.
How so? Who here is suggesting you should be summarily executed (or whatever)? We’re talking about tax rates on really high incomes. And why is it people like you, particularly? Like you in what way?
“I’d also say that we’re again talking about whether taxation in general is morally wrong, not what rates should apply and when.”
I think the discussion is about what taxation should pay for, thus whether above some amount of it is morally wrong. We have a document defining the what that is interpreted within our system by the courts and Congress.
If the government taxes to pay for things outside that compact is that immoral?
Once the agreement is reached that the spend is within that agreement the how much and who becomes a simpler question. IMO.
“I’d also say that we’re again talking about whether taxation in general is morally wrong, not what rates should apply and when.”
I think the discussion is about what taxation should pay for, thus whether above some amount of it is morally wrong. We have a document defining the what that is interpreted within our system by the courts and Congress.
If the government taxes to pay for things outside that compact is that immoral?
Once the agreement is reached that the spend is within that agreement the how much and who becomes a simpler question. IMO.
government creates the opportunity to make money
“Government” does much more than that I should think (as has been repeatedly pointed out). It creates the money, creating net financial assets in the private sector. It establishes the ground rules that must be adhered to to make the money. It allocates resources to enforcing those rules (rob the local 7-11, do time; rob your employee’s wages…most likely will get away with it). Sometimes, it prevents us from spending it any way we want to (bribing public officials, for example), and it also taxes it. Yes, taxes are real!
Your financial journey takes place enmeshed in a web of government imposed restraints, rules, and regulations. The right to make and keep as much money as you can is, to coin a term, rightfully subject to social, legal, political and moral norms.
You seem to be arguing that since the unlimited acquisition of financial wealth is legal (seems to be currently true) it is therefore right (the moral claim)…right because it is legal.
This seems….a bit circular.
(con’t)Well, yeah. But the counter to this is we can, and rightfully so, change the rules. The question is, would this be good or harmful?
I shall leave the Pareto principle for another day!
government creates the opportunity to make money
“Government” does much more than that I should think (as has been repeatedly pointed out). It creates the money, creating net financial assets in the private sector. It establishes the ground rules that must be adhered to to make the money. It allocates resources to enforcing those rules (rob the local 7-11, do time; rob your employee’s wages…most likely will get away with it). Sometimes, it prevents us from spending it any way we want to (bribing public officials, for example), and it also taxes it. Yes, taxes are real!
Your financial journey takes place enmeshed in a web of government imposed restraints, rules, and regulations. The right to make and keep as much money as you can is, to coin a term, rightfully subject to social, legal, political and moral norms.
You seem to be arguing that since the unlimited acquisition of financial wealth is legal (seems to be currently true) it is therefore right (the moral claim)…right because it is legal.
This seems….a bit circular.
(con’t)Well, yeah. But the counter to this is we can, and rightfully so, change the rules. The question is, would this be good or harmful?
I shall leave the Pareto principle for another day!
Provided it has a compelling interest to do so, yes. What I think we’re discussing is whether that compelling interest exists. Of course, that would depend on the specifics of what that government wants to do (if I can put it terms of the government having desire and agency for the sake of brevity), which is a more practical question, along the lines of “does it promote the general welfare?”.
Ok, if this comes across as contentious, that’s not the intent: are you saying, “government’s existence justifies its actions if the actions are sufficiently warranted and if the object of the government’s actions would not exist but for the government?
Here’s my criticism: today’s majority might think income capping is the single most important issue there is. Tomorrow’s majority might think mandatory multi-family dwelling is essential. And so on. Basically, if one can articulate chicken and egg relationship between government and any human endeavor and also articulate a compelling reason, there is no limit what to a simple majority can do. Problematic in my view.
Provided it has a compelling interest to do so, yes. What I think we’re discussing is whether that compelling interest exists. Of course, that would depend on the specifics of what that government wants to do (if I can put it terms of the government having desire and agency for the sake of brevity), which is a more practical question, along the lines of “does it promote the general welfare?”.
Ok, if this comes across as contentious, that’s not the intent: are you saying, “government’s existence justifies its actions if the actions are sufficiently warranted and if the object of the government’s actions would not exist but for the government?
Here’s my criticism: today’s majority might think income capping is the single most important issue there is. Tomorrow’s majority might think mandatory multi-family dwelling is essential. And so on. Basically, if one can articulate chicken and egg relationship between government and any human endeavor and also articulate a compelling reason, there is no limit what to a simple majority can do. Problematic in my view.
Surfacing to say that I really enjoyed reading this discussion.
DIVE DIVE
Surfacing to say that I really enjoyed reading this discussion.
DIVE DIVE
Yeah, but that’s why we DO have a constitution. I don’t see a constitutional argument against near-confiscatory tax rates on very high incomes. Pretending we don’t have a constitution for the sake of argument is fun, but we do have one, and it prevents the sorts of things you’re describing, which is kind of the point of having it.
Yeah, but that’s why we DO have a constitution. I don’t see a constitutional argument against near-confiscatory tax rates on very high incomes. Pretending we don’t have a constitution for the sake of argument is fun, but we do have one, and it prevents the sorts of things you’re describing, which is kind of the point of having it.
And forget a simple majority. A well-armed minority might decide a lot of weird things should happen.
And forget a simple majority. A well-armed minority might decide a lot of weird things should happen.
True. And that’s what makes concentrations of wealth inimical to democracy. Left to itself, The Free Market can winnow “employers” down to a small cabal of workplace-rule setters whose notions of “patriotism” among other things may be entirely distasteful to job-consuming working stiffs like you and me.
Or politically correct SJW concentration camps. Unfortunately, business are already creating politically charged cultures, creating all kinds of issues.
You seem to be arguing that since the unlimited acquisition of financial wealth is legal (seems to be currently true) it is therefore right (the moral claim)…right because it is legal.
This seems….a bit circular.
Not saying that the right or proper or correct thing is the unlimited accretion of wealth. I said so above. I’m saying that, money earned legally, after paying reasonable levels of tax, is property that the person making the money has a right to keep. Even if it’s big f’ing shitpile of money. I’m not a fan of conspicuous consumption or accumulating money for it’s own sake. I also don’t like cats. Doesn’t mean people can’t own as many as they want as long as they take care of them.
True. And that’s what makes concentrations of wealth inimical to democracy. Left to itself, The Free Market can winnow “employers” down to a small cabal of workplace-rule setters whose notions of “patriotism” among other things may be entirely distasteful to job-consuming working stiffs like you and me.
Or politically correct SJW concentration camps. Unfortunately, business are already creating politically charged cultures, creating all kinds of issues.
You seem to be arguing that since the unlimited acquisition of financial wealth is legal (seems to be currently true) it is therefore right (the moral claim)…right because it is legal.
This seems….a bit circular.
Not saying that the right or proper or correct thing is the unlimited accretion of wealth. I said so above. I’m saying that, money earned legally, after paying reasonable levels of tax, is property that the person making the money has a right to keep. Even if it’s big f’ing shitpile of money. I’m not a fan of conspicuous consumption or accumulating money for it’s own sake. I also don’t like cats. Doesn’t mean people can’t own as many as they want as long as they take care of them.
Pollo, it has certainly vastly exceeded my expectations!
Pollo, it has certainly vastly exceeded my expectations!
money earned legally, after paying reasonable levels of tax, is property that the person making the money has a right to keep [Emphasis added]
And there is the crux right there: what constitutes “reasonable” levels?
money earned legally, after paying reasonable levels of tax, is property that the person making the money has a right to keep [Emphasis added]
And there is the crux right there: what constitutes “reasonable” levels?
…is property that the person making the money has a right to keep. Even if it’s big f’ing shitpile of money.
Does this just apply to money or wealth in general? I pay property taxes every year, regardless of what I make in income. Those taxes amount to about 3% of the value of my house (of which I only really own about 1/3, with the rest belonging to a bank).
…is property that the person making the money has a right to keep. Even if it’s big f’ing shitpile of money.
Does this just apply to money or wealth in general? I pay property taxes every year, regardless of what I make in income. Those taxes amount to about 3% of the value of my house (of which I only really own about 1/3, with the rest belonging to a bank).
Really? It isn’t my money? I’m harming others by having it? Would you mind explaining?
I think it’s been done already, hence my observation, but here:
I earned the money legally
“Money”, “earned” and “legal” are all social constructions here.
Money is a medium of debt that seems pretty useful, and crops up all the time, but what it is, who can have it, what it can be used for, etc. is all subject to the whims and rules of society, and can change.
Same for how it can be legally earned. Is charging interest legal? Making money from the labor of others? Making money off of things you own that you can’t actually keep on your person? Making money above a certain safe, unobnoxious amount? Whichever way those questions are answered, the rules are equally artificial.
Only a very, very small bit of the structure around ownership and money could in any way be considered “natural”. The rest is, essentially, a matter of utility. We allow the charging of interest these days because it serves a useful function in the dispensation of credit. We don’t allow charging too much sometimes, because it can be abused. Etc.
and paid the tax on it
Since we’re basically talking about how much tax you would (in future) owe on it, this seems like begging the question. If you paid 40% tax on it, but the tax owed was 80% or 100%, then no, you didn’t pay the tax on it.
therefore it is mine.
Again, a construction of the society and government you live in and under. If some ‘wacko’ anarcholibertarians or whatever took over and said that there was no longer any concept of private property outside what you could actually carry on your person, I don’t see any intrinsic moral grounds on which you could object — anything beyond that is essentially only ‘your property’ in the sense that the government (i.e., your fellow citizens) have agreed to keep track of it for you when you’re not around.
Having that money puts no one at risk. It harms no one.
As I have repeatedly pointed out, this is not true.
I mean, I’d concede it on your personal case – I’m sure you’re well below the kinds of thresholds of dangerous wealth we’re talking about. But it’s the dose that makes the poison.
Large concentrations of wealth, like gravity, distort markets, policy and society around them, impinging on the freedom of the rest of us to live our lives without this influence.
It’s within our rights to say ‘enough’.
Really? It isn’t my money? I’m harming others by having it? Would you mind explaining?
I think it’s been done already, hence my observation, but here:
I earned the money legally
“Money”, “earned” and “legal” are all social constructions here.
Money is a medium of debt that seems pretty useful, and crops up all the time, but what it is, who can have it, what it can be used for, etc. is all subject to the whims and rules of society, and can change.
Same for how it can be legally earned. Is charging interest legal? Making money from the labor of others? Making money off of things you own that you can’t actually keep on your person? Making money above a certain safe, unobnoxious amount? Whichever way those questions are answered, the rules are equally artificial.
Only a very, very small bit of the structure around ownership and money could in any way be considered “natural”. The rest is, essentially, a matter of utility. We allow the charging of interest these days because it serves a useful function in the dispensation of credit. We don’t allow charging too much sometimes, because it can be abused. Etc.
and paid the tax on it
Since we’re basically talking about how much tax you would (in future) owe on it, this seems like begging the question. If you paid 40% tax on it, but the tax owed was 80% or 100%, then no, you didn’t pay the tax on it.
therefore it is mine.
Again, a construction of the society and government you live in and under. If some ‘wacko’ anarcholibertarians or whatever took over and said that there was no longer any concept of private property outside what you could actually carry on your person, I don’t see any intrinsic moral grounds on which you could object — anything beyond that is essentially only ‘your property’ in the sense that the government (i.e., your fellow citizens) have agreed to keep track of it for you when you’re not around.
Having that money puts no one at risk. It harms no one.
As I have repeatedly pointed out, this is not true.
I mean, I’d concede it on your personal case – I’m sure you’re well below the kinds of thresholds of dangerous wealth we’re talking about. But it’s the dose that makes the poison.
Large concentrations of wealth, like gravity, distort markets, policy and society around them, impinging on the freedom of the rest of us to live our lives without this influence.
It’s within our rights to say ‘enough’.
I don’t see a constitutional argument against near-confiscatory tax rates on very high incomes.
The 5th and 14th amendments both prohibit depriving a citizen of property without due process of law and the 14th amendment addresses equal protection under the law. So, here’s your constitutional argument: the 16th amendment doesn’t authorize a progressive tax scheme nor does it authorize confiscation via taxation. I concede that the former has passed constitutional muster as has, I presume, a 90% marginal rate. At one time ‘separate but equal’ passed muster, so winning the point doesn’t mean the constitution, as written, is being followed. My argument is that Gov’t’s power to tax cannot extend to deprivation because deprivation requires due process. Further, by singling out a minority that is, by definition, out-voted, that minority is being denied equal protection under the law.
So, there is an argument to be made. There are counter arguments–there always are.
I don’t see a constitutional argument against near-confiscatory tax rates on very high incomes.
The 5th and 14th amendments both prohibit depriving a citizen of property without due process of law and the 14th amendment addresses equal protection under the law. So, here’s your constitutional argument: the 16th amendment doesn’t authorize a progressive tax scheme nor does it authorize confiscation via taxation. I concede that the former has passed constitutional muster as has, I presume, a 90% marginal rate. At one time ‘separate but equal’ passed muster, so winning the point doesn’t mean the constitution, as written, is being followed. My argument is that Gov’t’s power to tax cannot extend to deprivation because deprivation requires due process. Further, by singling out a minority that is, by definition, out-voted, that minority is being denied equal protection under the law.
So, there is an argument to be made. There are counter arguments–there always are.
I previously asked, or intended to ask (don’t want to start lying again) ‘what principle allows voters to limit what a citizen can make or keep but prevents voters from limiting abortion or the right of others (blacks, just to make the point) to vote?’ and got no takers, or at least none that I noticed. Apologies to anyone I overlooked.
I accept your apology. For my part (I think there were others as well), see my comment of May 23, 2018 at 02:59 PM.
I previously asked, or intended to ask (don’t want to start lying again) ‘what principle allows voters to limit what a citizen can make or keep but prevents voters from limiting abortion or the right of others (blacks, just to make the point) to vote?’ and got no takers, or at least none that I noticed. Apologies to anyone I overlooked.
I accept your apology. For my part (I think there were others as well), see my comment of May 23, 2018 at 02:59 PM.
McTX: ‘what principle allows voters to limit what a citizen can make or keep but prevents voters from limiting abortion or the right of others (blacks, just to make the point) to vote?’ and got no takers, or at least none that I noticed.
Okay, I’ll take a shot at that.
The “principle” is, way down at the bottom, power. If enough Americans decide, in the future, to forbid black people to vote or to forbid women from aborting pregnancies, neither a document from the past nor a consensus among Americans today will be able to stop them. Violent revolt by black people and women might, but violent revolt is a lot of fuss and bother for everyone concerned.
Likewise, if enough Americans decide someday that $1M of annual income or $1B of wealth is “enough” for anybody, then the poor put-upon minority of multi-billionaires will just have to lump it.
If we prefer to elevate ourselves above the need to settle things by violence and discuss “principles” in the ordinary sense, we might note that “rich” is distinguishable from “black” or “female” on the basis of what’s voluntary and what isn’t. I will grant that avarice may be congenital, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.
–TP
McTX: ‘what principle allows voters to limit what a citizen can make or keep but prevents voters from limiting abortion or the right of others (blacks, just to make the point) to vote?’ and got no takers, or at least none that I noticed.
Okay, I’ll take a shot at that.
The “principle” is, way down at the bottom, power. If enough Americans decide, in the future, to forbid black people to vote or to forbid women from aborting pregnancies, neither a document from the past nor a consensus among Americans today will be able to stop them. Violent revolt by black people and women might, but violent revolt is a lot of fuss and bother for everyone concerned.
Likewise, if enough Americans decide someday that $1M of annual income or $1B of wealth is “enough” for anybody, then the poor put-upon minority of multi-billionaires will just have to lump it.
If we prefer to elevate ourselves above the need to settle things by violence and discuss “principles” in the ordinary sense, we might note that “rich” is distinguishable from “black” or “female” on the basis of what’s voluntary and what isn’t. I will grant that avarice may be congenital, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.
–TP
Serious question: can you give me some examples? Are you thinking of the transition from feudalism via the Renaissance?
Sure, I’ll try.
Market economies, I think, don’t really need demonstration. People have been buying, selling, and trading for as long as we have a record of human activity, as far as I know.
Capital formation is the accumulation of the means of production. Which people have likewise been doing forever, whether in their own interest, or co-operatively as a community, or under the aegis of a government.
Capital accumulation in private hands goes back in Europe to probably 13th and 14th C city-states, especially in Italy. Maybe earlier.
Those were merchant economies, not capitalist in the form we think of now. Similar institutions – merchant associations – go back to Roman times. I’m sure they existed in most advanced civilizations.
Trading as a basic human activity – buy stuff cheap here, sell it there where it’s expensive – is as old as human history. Individuals and communities of people built wealth that way, some of which was surplus to immediate need and was saved or invested in the means to produce and trade more and further.
Serious question: can you give me some examples? Are you thinking of the transition from feudalism via the Renaissance?
Sure, I’ll try.
Market economies, I think, don’t really need demonstration. People have been buying, selling, and trading for as long as we have a record of human activity, as far as I know.
Capital formation is the accumulation of the means of production. Which people have likewise been doing forever, whether in their own interest, or co-operatively as a community, or under the aegis of a government.
Capital accumulation in private hands goes back in Europe to probably 13th and 14th C city-states, especially in Italy. Maybe earlier.
Those were merchant economies, not capitalist in the form we think of now. Similar institutions – merchant associations – go back to Roman times. I’m sure they existed in most advanced civilizations.
Trading as a basic human activity – buy stuff cheap here, sell it there where it’s expensive – is as old as human history. Individuals and communities of people built wealth that way, some of which was surplus to immediate need and was saved or invested in the means to produce and trade more and further.
The 5th and 14th amendments both prohibit depriving a citizen of property without due process of law and the 14th amendment addresses equal protection under the law.
Passing a tax rate would seem to meet the threshold for “due process of law.” Right?
And if the (marginal) tax rate applies to everyone with income above the set threshold, that would appear to address “equal protection.” (As you say, it can be argue that maybe it shouldn’t. But the Courts have ruled that progressive income taxes are not a violation.)
The 5th and 14th amendments both prohibit depriving a citizen of property without due process of law and the 14th amendment addresses equal protection under the law.
Passing a tax rate would seem to meet the threshold for “due process of law.” Right?
And if the (marginal) tax rate applies to everyone with income above the set threshold, that would appear to address “equal protection.” (As you say, it can be argue that maybe it shouldn’t. But the Courts have ruled that progressive income taxes are not a violation.)
Further, by singling out a minority that is, by definition, out-voted, that minority is being denied equal protection under the law.
I don’t think this passes muster. There’s nothing unequal going on here at all.
Every single person is equally prohibited from earning more than $X (or equally subject to a 100% tax on earnings above $X, or however it’s formulated)*.
And before you start, ‘rich people’ are not even remotely a protected class. (Well, they protect themselves pretty well, but you know what I mean.)
If you’re not seeing the problem here, maybe you can help me figure out how the reasoning you’re using couldn’t be applied verbatim to, say, bank robbery.
“As a minority, bank robbers are, by definition, outvoted and that minority is being denied equal protection under the law.”
Hell, that’s probably a stronger argument: unlike the rich, you at least have a nice record of the historical persecution of bank robbers…
—-
* For irony, I remind you of the old saw about rich and poor being equally prohibited from sleeping under public bridges…
Further, by singling out a minority that is, by definition, out-voted, that minority is being denied equal protection under the law.
I don’t think this passes muster. There’s nothing unequal going on here at all.
Every single person is equally prohibited from earning more than $X (or equally subject to a 100% tax on earnings above $X, or however it’s formulated)*.
And before you start, ‘rich people’ are not even remotely a protected class. (Well, they protect themselves pretty well, but you know what I mean.)
If you’re not seeing the problem here, maybe you can help me figure out how the reasoning you’re using couldn’t be applied verbatim to, say, bank robbery.
“As a minority, bank robbers are, by definition, outvoted and that minority is being denied equal protection under the law.”
Hell, that’s probably a stronger argument: unlike the rich, you at least have a nice record of the historical persecution of bank robbers…
—-
* For irony, I remind you of the old saw about rich and poor being equally prohibited from sleeping under public bridges…
And there is the crux right there: what constitutes “reasonable” levels?
Well, the original point was a cap on wealth and a 100% tax on income at a certain point. I’ve tried to demonstrate that neither is reasonable nor desirable.
I don’t like limits of any kind for all of the reasons previously stated. It is not at all clear to me that income inequality or the 1% or the 9.9% or any of the other very recent constructs mean much, or that they are in any way pernicious. So, the premise that ‘something must be done about all of this accumulation” remains to be proven.
I do enjoy the back and forth and I’ve taken off virtually the entire day to do this. I’ll probably have to sign off for a time after today. Still chasing that filthy lucre.
Does this just apply to money or wealth in general? I pay property taxes every year, regardless of what I make in income. Those taxes amount to about 3% of the value of my house (of which I only really own about 1/3, with the rest belonging to a bank).
Both. Wealth is what’s left after you pay your income tax. Property tax is a local phenomena (local but universal as best I can tell) and I pay a bunch too, plus I pay tax in about 15 other states because I have imputed income from those states. What I like about property tax is that the taxpayer’s vote is much less attenuated than with federal taxes. But, that’s probably just me.
“Money”, “earned” and “legal” are all social constructions here.
And
It’s within our rights to say ‘enough’.
And everything in between, IMO, can be shortened to, “we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, if enough of us want to do so.” Which, in practice, would produce a revolution and not a nice one.
What we have–I think–is an agreed set of rules and a social contract that has been evolving for 250 years or thereabouts, almost entirely for the better. It is a contract that millions of people depend on. One of the things many of us depend on is stability, including the stability that flows from a constitutionally limited government. I don’t buy into your theory of government or what I take to be your views of what a better society would look like.
And there is the crux right there: what constitutes “reasonable” levels?
Well, the original point was a cap on wealth and a 100% tax on income at a certain point. I’ve tried to demonstrate that neither is reasonable nor desirable.
I don’t like limits of any kind for all of the reasons previously stated. It is not at all clear to me that income inequality or the 1% or the 9.9% or any of the other very recent constructs mean much, or that they are in any way pernicious. So, the premise that ‘something must be done about all of this accumulation” remains to be proven.
I do enjoy the back and forth and I’ve taken off virtually the entire day to do this. I’ll probably have to sign off for a time after today. Still chasing that filthy lucre.
Does this just apply to money or wealth in general? I pay property taxes every year, regardless of what I make in income. Those taxes amount to about 3% of the value of my house (of which I only really own about 1/3, with the rest belonging to a bank).
Both. Wealth is what’s left after you pay your income tax. Property tax is a local phenomena (local but universal as best I can tell) and I pay a bunch too, plus I pay tax in about 15 other states because I have imputed income from those states. What I like about property tax is that the taxpayer’s vote is much less attenuated than with federal taxes. But, that’s probably just me.
“Money”, “earned” and “legal” are all social constructions here.
And
It’s within our rights to say ‘enough’.
And everything in between, IMO, can be shortened to, “we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, if enough of us want to do so.” Which, in practice, would produce a revolution and not a nice one.
What we have–I think–is an agreed set of rules and a social contract that has been evolving for 250 years or thereabouts, almost entirely for the better. It is a contract that millions of people depend on. One of the things many of us depend on is stability, including the stability that flows from a constitutionally limited government. I don’t buy into your theory of government or what I take to be your views of what a better society would look like.
the answer to this question is a foregone conclusion, because this is how our culture produces things
bingo
The larger picture is that if everyone is capped at X then your economy is never more than X times the population.
US GDP per capita is a little under $60K.
We got some headroom. 🙂
the answer to this question is a foregone conclusion, because this is how our culture produces things
bingo
The larger picture is that if everyone is capped at X then your economy is never more than X times the population.
US GDP per capita is a little under $60K.
We got some headroom. 🙂
And everything in between, IMO, can be shortened to, “we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, if enough of us want to do so.”
Which, over the long view of history is nothing but the plain truth. We have rules and norms for a time, sometimes for thousands of years, but sometimes bits of those rules get widely recognized as harmful, and get altered. Others drift and change for no particular reason at all. Nothing is static forever.
Which, in practice, would produce a revolution and not a nice one.
It’s unclear what this means. If an income cap were lawfully and constitutionally enacted, it’d produce a bloody backlash from the rich?
Maybe.
A bloody backlash in the opposite direction is equally likely if things continue as they are. It’s not without precedent.
One of the things many of us depend on is stability, including the stability that flows from a constitutionally limited government. I don’t buy into your theory of government or what I take to be your views of what a better society would look like.
Nothing anyone’s proposed here is incompatible with constitutionally limited government.
And everything in between, IMO, can be shortened to, “we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, if enough of us want to do so.”
Which, over the long view of history is nothing but the plain truth. We have rules and norms for a time, sometimes for thousands of years, but sometimes bits of those rules get widely recognized as harmful, and get altered. Others drift and change for no particular reason at all. Nothing is static forever.
Which, in practice, would produce a revolution and not a nice one.
It’s unclear what this means. If an income cap were lawfully and constitutionally enacted, it’d produce a bloody backlash from the rich?
Maybe.
A bloody backlash in the opposite direction is equally likely if things continue as they are. It’s not without precedent.
One of the things many of us depend on is stability, including the stability that flows from a constitutionally limited government. I don’t buy into your theory of government or what I take to be your views of what a better society would look like.
Nothing anyone’s proposed here is incompatible with constitutionally limited government.
Those were merchant economies, not capitalist in the form we think of now.
Note the confluence of technology (steam) and the unlocking of those carbon resources (coal, oil) and the erection of the capitalist economy and its associated ideological edifice of endless accumulation. (1750-1850*).
Naturally, this was all due to the discovery of the Natural Law that states, “It’s mine, and I have every right to f*cking keep it!”
How did the ancients ever get anything done? It is a wonder.
Cart? Horse? Pareto disequilibrium?**
*Also to be mentioned the economic “take off” resulting from the plundering of the New World by the Old, and the construction of the Slave Trade.
**made that up. Sorry.
Those were merchant economies, not capitalist in the form we think of now.
Note the confluence of technology (steam) and the unlocking of those carbon resources (coal, oil) and the erection of the capitalist economy and its associated ideological edifice of endless accumulation. (1750-1850*).
Naturally, this was all due to the discovery of the Natural Law that states, “It’s mine, and I have every right to f*cking keep it!”
How did the ancients ever get anything done? It is a wonder.
Cart? Horse? Pareto disequilibrium?**
*Also to be mentioned the economic “take off” resulting from the plundering of the New World by the Old, and the construction of the Slave Trade.
**made that up. Sorry.
Slow day at the office today, McKinney?
Slow day at the office today, McKinney?
If the top marginal tax rate on income (not wealth) over $100M per annum was 80%, does anyone think that significant harm would come to the economy as a whole?
Note that I’m not talking about 80% on $100M, I’m talking about 80% on whatever you make above $100M. In a year.
What if it was $50M per annum? Income, not wealth?
I don’t even know if it would be worth doing, I’m not sure what we would net out of that as federal revenue.
I’m just asking, just to see if there’s any imaginable regime that would be acceptable to the traditional capitalists among us.
If the top marginal tax rate on income (not wealth) over $100M per annum was 80%, does anyone think that significant harm would come to the economy as a whole?
Note that I’m not talking about 80% on $100M, I’m talking about 80% on whatever you make above $100M. In a year.
What if it was $50M per annum? Income, not wealth?
I don’t even know if it would be worth doing, I’m not sure what we would net out of that as federal revenue.
I’m just asking, just to see if there’s any imaginable regime that would be acceptable to the traditional capitalists among us.
You know, if we had public policies that tended to discourage the accumulation of such wealth to begin with, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, right?
You know, if we had public policies that tended to discourage the accumulation of such wealth to begin with, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, right?
McTX: Unfortunately, business are already creating politically charged cultures, creating all kinds of issues.
Heh. I think McKinney is squirming on his own petard here.
Does Dick (is there a Dick?) of Dick’s Sporting Goods not own the commercial empire he built? Does he have less of a right to decide his “going business concern” will poke the “gun culture” in the eye than the god-botherers who own Hobby Lobby have to give the finger to their women job consumers? I mean, we’re talking capital here. We’re talking wealth (presumably vastly greater than McKinney’s) exercising its god-given power. If that is “unfortunate”, then maybe McKinney is starting to catch on.
–TP
McTX: Unfortunately, business are already creating politically charged cultures, creating all kinds of issues.
Heh. I think McKinney is squirming on his own petard here.
Does Dick (is there a Dick?) of Dick’s Sporting Goods not own the commercial empire he built? Does he have less of a right to decide his “going business concern” will poke the “gun culture” in the eye than the god-botherers who own Hobby Lobby have to give the finger to their women job consumers? I mean, we’re talking capital here. We’re talking wealth (presumably vastly greater than McKinney’s) exercising its god-given power. If that is “unfortunate”, then maybe McKinney is starting to catch on.
–TP
Italics clean-up on page 3, please.
–TP
Done — wj
Italics clean-up on page 3, please.
–TP
Done — wj
I accept your apology. For my part (I think there were others as well), see my comment of May 23, 2018 at 02:59 PM.
Yep, missed it but now I have it. I think I inferentially addressed your position by noting subsequently that I was couching the question independent of the constitution and for specific reasons. I agree that there are constitutional reasons why, today, abortion and black suffrage are not subject to the vote. I will address TP’s point next, which is more in line with the intent of the question I originally framed.
The “principle” is, way down at the bottom, power.
Yep, if “power” is a principle, that’s the answer to the question.
Trading as a basic human activity – buy stuff cheap here, sell it there where it’s expensive – is as old as human history. Individuals and communities of people built wealth that way, some of which was surplus to immediate need and was saved or invested in the means to produce and trade more and further
Ok, thanks for this. We have a conceptual difference. I agree, the Phoenicians were running around and before them maybe the Tartessians and who knows who else back to the dawn of time. Obsidian from the foot of some volcano winds up in the Texas panhandle. Vintners and bakers sold their stuff. I get that and I take your point. My point, now that I look back was somewhat obscure. I will elaborate in the unlikely event I continue to hold your attention.
I have a fairly conventional view of history, so for me, by the late 18th century (or thereabouts), the inception of the modern industrial economy, fueled by what I think of as proto capitalism was well underway. And with that, coupled with the ensuing, much more rapidly evolving and relatively liberal rule of law and coupled further with proto democracy (white men only), you had the seed crystals of modern liberal democracy which, IMO, could only exist in the context of a capitalistically generated market economy, i.e. an economy that depends on the accumulation and reinvestment of excess funds with minimal to no government interface. My short hand for the foregoing is “capitalism”.
Passing a tax rate would seem to meet the threshold for “due process of law.” Right?
Well, no. Due process means, literally, “notice and a hearing, i.e. the right to be heard” but it is in the judicial context. The original constitution, except for its enumerated taxing powers and eminent domain, does not envision confiscating citizen’s property. Confiscation would come only after due course of law and a trial, meaning some legal basis for a forfeiture and a trial to establish the evidence in support of the legal basis. The 16th amendment doesn’t speak to confiscation, only to taxation. Taxation to the point of confiscation is a fairly recent talking point tied into the inequality issues that are now in vogue.
I don’t think this passes muster. There’s nothing unequal going on here at all.
Every single person is equally prohibited from earning more than $X (or equally subject to a 100% tax on earnings above $X, or however it’s formulated)*.
The fact that only a small minority are committing this economic crime in the first place means nothing? The fact that, as TP acknowledges, it is a straight up power thing in which the majority outvotes the minority, eludes you?
I accept your apology. For my part (I think there were others as well), see my comment of May 23, 2018 at 02:59 PM.
Yep, missed it but now I have it. I think I inferentially addressed your position by noting subsequently that I was couching the question independent of the constitution and for specific reasons. I agree that there are constitutional reasons why, today, abortion and black suffrage are not subject to the vote. I will address TP’s point next, which is more in line with the intent of the question I originally framed.
The “principle” is, way down at the bottom, power.
Yep, if “power” is a principle, that’s the answer to the question.
Trading as a basic human activity – buy stuff cheap here, sell it there where it’s expensive – is as old as human history. Individuals and communities of people built wealth that way, some of which was surplus to immediate need and was saved or invested in the means to produce and trade more and further
Ok, thanks for this. We have a conceptual difference. I agree, the Phoenicians were running around and before them maybe the Tartessians and who knows who else back to the dawn of time. Obsidian from the foot of some volcano winds up in the Texas panhandle. Vintners and bakers sold their stuff. I get that and I take your point. My point, now that I look back was somewhat obscure. I will elaborate in the unlikely event I continue to hold your attention.
I have a fairly conventional view of history, so for me, by the late 18th century (or thereabouts), the inception of the modern industrial economy, fueled by what I think of as proto capitalism was well underway. And with that, coupled with the ensuing, much more rapidly evolving and relatively liberal rule of law and coupled further with proto democracy (white men only), you had the seed crystals of modern liberal democracy which, IMO, could only exist in the context of a capitalistically generated market economy, i.e. an economy that depends on the accumulation and reinvestment of excess funds with minimal to no government interface. My short hand for the foregoing is “capitalism”.
Passing a tax rate would seem to meet the threshold for “due process of law.” Right?
Well, no. Due process means, literally, “notice and a hearing, i.e. the right to be heard” but it is in the judicial context. The original constitution, except for its enumerated taxing powers and eminent domain, does not envision confiscating citizen’s property. Confiscation would come only after due course of law and a trial, meaning some legal basis for a forfeiture and a trial to establish the evidence in support of the legal basis. The 16th amendment doesn’t speak to confiscation, only to taxation. Taxation to the point of confiscation is a fairly recent talking point tied into the inequality issues that are now in vogue.
I don’t think this passes muster. There’s nothing unequal going on here at all.
Every single person is equally prohibited from earning more than $X (or equally subject to a 100% tax on earnings above $X, or however it’s formulated)*.
The fact that only a small minority are committing this economic crime in the first place means nothing? The fact that, as TP acknowledges, it is a straight up power thing in which the majority outvotes the minority, eludes you?
What we have–I think–is an agreed set of rules and a social contract that has been evolving for 250 years or thereabouts, almost entirely for the better. It is a contract that millions of people depend on.
That’s a pretty shitty contract for 90% of the people, OK for 9% and awesome for 1% – I guess the 1% could afford better lawyers…
What we have–I think–is an agreed set of rules and a social contract that has been evolving for 250 years or thereabouts, almost entirely for the better. It is a contract that millions of people depend on.
That’s a pretty shitty contract for 90% of the people, OK for 9% and awesome for 1% – I guess the 1% could afford better lawyers…
I don’t think even McKinney believes his equal-protection argument.
I don’t think even McKinney believes his equal-protection argument.
What we have–I think–is an agreed set of rules and a social contract that has been evolving for 250 years or thereabouts, almost entirely for the better. It is a contract that millions of people depend on. One of the things many of us depend on is stability, including the stability that flows from a constitutionally limited government.
Just going over this again to see if I have this straight.
Off the top of my head, some changes over the past 250 years: the end of chattel slavery; women, black people and others obtaining for themselves the right to vote and, at least in principle, the ability to participate in work other aspects of society; the adoption of a progressive income tax as one of the primary revenue sources of the federal government; the creation of public schools and universities; the creation of national parks; the formation of public assistance schemes like unemployment insurance, social security, medicare and others; the recognition of the harm of trusts and monopolies and the adoption of laws against them (albeit spottily enforced); the adoption of standing armies, a draft or two, a couple of nuclear bombs (and a whole lot of conventional ones) used against civilian populations; a brief trip to the friggin’ Moon. In the background: the transition of the United States from a handful of sleepy, agrarian, slave trading estates on the East Coast to a continent-wide industrial empire with global economic and military power.
In short, a lot of major changes. Some in the form of bona fide constitutional amendments, or even wars. And there’s plenty I’ve missed.
If we took Jefferson, or Adams, or the unnamed slave whose skilled labor kept the distillery on some Carolina plantation somewhere running, and brought them forward in time, gave them a week or two to watch some CNN and get the lay of the land, then asked for their opinion… Well, I think they’d have no qualms in saying our society and government isn’t much like the one we plucked them from. Not very much at all.
And yet. After all those changes and upheavals, the one change that would be a bridge too far, the one change that would be so unprecedented as to just necessarily bring the whole edifice of stable constitutional government crashing to a halt and forever breaking it for all time, because if people change this they could just change anything… That one change would be any kind of limitation on the arbitrarily large accumulation of wealth.
…
Right.
What we have–I think–is an agreed set of rules and a social contract that has been evolving for 250 years or thereabouts, almost entirely for the better. It is a contract that millions of people depend on. One of the things many of us depend on is stability, including the stability that flows from a constitutionally limited government.
Just going over this again to see if I have this straight.
Off the top of my head, some changes over the past 250 years: the end of chattel slavery; women, black people and others obtaining for themselves the right to vote and, at least in principle, the ability to participate in work other aspects of society; the adoption of a progressive income tax as one of the primary revenue sources of the federal government; the creation of public schools and universities; the creation of national parks; the formation of public assistance schemes like unemployment insurance, social security, medicare and others; the recognition of the harm of trusts and monopolies and the adoption of laws against them (albeit spottily enforced); the adoption of standing armies, a draft or two, a couple of nuclear bombs (and a whole lot of conventional ones) used against civilian populations; a brief trip to the friggin’ Moon. In the background: the transition of the United States from a handful of sleepy, agrarian, slave trading estates on the East Coast to a continent-wide industrial empire with global economic and military power.
In short, a lot of major changes. Some in the form of bona fide constitutional amendments, or even wars. And there’s plenty I’ve missed.
If we took Jefferson, or Adams, or the unnamed slave whose skilled labor kept the distillery on some Carolina plantation somewhere running, and brought them forward in time, gave them a week or two to watch some CNN and get the lay of the land, then asked for their opinion… Well, I think they’d have no qualms in saying our society and government isn’t much like the one we plucked them from. Not very much at all.
And yet. After all those changes and upheavals, the one change that would be a bridge too far, the one change that would be so unprecedented as to just necessarily bring the whole edifice of stable constitutional government crashing to a halt and forever breaking it for all time, because if people change this they could just change anything… That one change would be any kind of limitation on the arbitrarily large accumulation of wealth.
…
Right.
Where does the state have the right to confiscate anyone’s property for no better reason that the people so voted?
Slow day at the office today, McKinney?
Kind of. Also, since this is the first, mostly civil, non-Trump infused topic and discussion, the timing was right. I will have some catching up to do and it will probably be drive-by’s for the next several months if not longer. I don’t see many weeks like this. Hitting the links tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll be thinking of you.
I’m just asking, just to see if there’s any imaginable regime that would be acceptable to the traditional capitalists among us.
It depends on the purpose of the tax increase. I think principles do matter. One principle I’m not on board with is getting down on someone for having too much, even if I think there most definitely is such a thing as ‘too much.’
That said, for the right reasons, I would jack up the marginal rates at various levels, but I would do it for very real reasons. Stand by for a thread jack and one that I will not be able to defend after about an hour or less: after adjusting SS–pain will be inflicted–to make it solvent in the out years, and after capping all federal spending at current levels except Medicare/Medicaid, I would impose a 1 dollar a gallon tax on gas at the pump specifically dedicated to deficit reduction and I would add additional marginal rates at 5, 10, 20 and 50M of 45, 55, 65 and 75%, again only for debt reduction. Once the budget was balanced, I’d revert to 40% max. Also, cap gains would kick in at 3 years and would drop on assets held more than 5 years. I would want to encourage long term investment by taxing gains on same very favorably. Have at it.
Does Dick (is there a Dick?) of Dick’s Sporting Goods not own the commercial empire he built? Does he have less of a right to decide his “going business concern” will poke the “gun culture” in the eye than the god-botherers who own Hobby Lobby have to give the finger to their women job consumers? I mean, we’re talking capital here. We’re talking wealth (presumably vastly greater than McKinney’s) exercising its god-given power. If that is “unfortunate”, then maybe McKinney is starting to catch on.
No squirming here, Amigo. Dick’s can do whatever it wants. I’m more concerned with corporate cultures that openly prefer one viewpoint over another. I don’t know what, if anything, can or should be done about it. I’m concerned about a lot of things that fall far short of being the proper subject of state action.
Italics clean-up on page 3, please.
No kidding! I can’t get them out. What’s up?
No clue. There was a < / i > there and everything. But it was being ignored. Finally had to put another one in. — wj
Where does the state have the right to confiscate anyone’s property for no better reason that the people so voted?
Slow day at the office today, McKinney?
Kind of. Also, since this is the first, mostly civil, non-Trump infused topic and discussion, the timing was right. I will have some catching up to do and it will probably be drive-by’s for the next several months if not longer. I don’t see many weeks like this. Hitting the links tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll be thinking of you.
I’m just asking, just to see if there’s any imaginable regime that would be acceptable to the traditional capitalists among us.
It depends on the purpose of the tax increase. I think principles do matter. One principle I’m not on board with is getting down on someone for having too much, even if I think there most definitely is such a thing as ‘too much.’
That said, for the right reasons, I would jack up the marginal rates at various levels, but I would do it for very real reasons. Stand by for a thread jack and one that I will not be able to defend after about an hour or less: after adjusting SS–pain will be inflicted–to make it solvent in the out years, and after capping all federal spending at current levels except Medicare/Medicaid, I would impose a 1 dollar a gallon tax on gas at the pump specifically dedicated to deficit reduction and I would add additional marginal rates at 5, 10, 20 and 50M of 45, 55, 65 and 75%, again only for debt reduction. Once the budget was balanced, I’d revert to 40% max. Also, cap gains would kick in at 3 years and would drop on assets held more than 5 years. I would want to encourage long term investment by taxing gains on same very favorably. Have at it.
Does Dick (is there a Dick?) of Dick’s Sporting Goods not own the commercial empire he built? Does he have less of a right to decide his “going business concern” will poke the “gun culture” in the eye than the god-botherers who own Hobby Lobby have to give the finger to their women job consumers? I mean, we’re talking capital here. We’re talking wealth (presumably vastly greater than McKinney’s) exercising its god-given power. If that is “unfortunate”, then maybe McKinney is starting to catch on.
No squirming here, Amigo. Dick’s can do whatever it wants. I’m more concerned with corporate cultures that openly prefer one viewpoint over another. I don’t know what, if anything, can or should be done about it. I’m concerned about a lot of things that fall far short of being the proper subject of state action.
Italics clean-up on page 3, please.
No kidding! I can’t get them out. What’s up?
No clue. There was a < / i > there and everything. But it was being ignored. Finally had to put another one in. — wj
Right.
We have a substantial and fundamentally different view of history.
Right.
We have a substantial and fundamentally different view of history.
And now they–the italics–are gone. So am I. Later. It was fun.
And now they–the italics–are gone. So am I. Later. It was fun.
The fact that only a small minority are committing this economic crime in the first place means nothing? The fact that, as TP acknowledges, it is a straight up power thing in which the majority outvotes the minority, eludes you?
I’m with HSH: Do you actually expect us to take this seriously?
Larger numbers of people who prefer option A outvoting smaller numbers of people who prefer option B, and winning via the principle of a “straight up power thing”, is simply how democratic government works*.
If we all vote on where we’re going to dinner and you want pizza but the majority votes for Thai, the fact that you find yourself in a temporary ‘minority’ of dissenters who lost the vote does not automatically make you some kind of persecuted minority.
To grant that it does would set fire to both the concepts of minority classes and democracy itself.
—-
* Yes, this is and should be regulated and moderated by some kind of overarching constitutional scheme, but the constitution of a democracy does not and cannot simply prevent any change that some people don’t want. There’s got to be an actual reason the change is wrong…
The fact that only a small minority are committing this economic crime in the first place means nothing? The fact that, as TP acknowledges, it is a straight up power thing in which the majority outvotes the minority, eludes you?
I’m with HSH: Do you actually expect us to take this seriously?
Larger numbers of people who prefer option A outvoting smaller numbers of people who prefer option B, and winning via the principle of a “straight up power thing”, is simply how democratic government works*.
If we all vote on where we’re going to dinner and you want pizza but the majority votes for Thai, the fact that you find yourself in a temporary ‘minority’ of dissenters who lost the vote does not automatically make you some kind of persecuted minority.
To grant that it does would set fire to both the concepts of minority classes and democracy itself.
—-
* Yes, this is and should be regulated and moderated by some kind of overarching constitutional scheme, but the constitution of a democracy does not and cannot simply prevent any change that some people don’t want. There’s got to be an actual reason the change is wrong…
So, there is an argument to be made.
and here i thought you weren’t going to argue the constitutionality of taxes.
So, there is an argument to be made.
and here i thought you weren’t going to argue the constitutionality of taxes.
RULE OF LAW! RULE OF LAW! TYRANNY!
STFU, 4E, GOP.
RULE OF LAW! RULE OF LAW! TYRANNY!
STFU, 4E, GOP.
What we have–I think–is an agreed set of rules and a social contract that has been evolving for 250 years or thereabouts, almost entirely for the better. It is a contract that millions of people depend on. One of the things many of us depend on is stability, including the stability that flows from a constitutionally limited government.
And what we are discussing here is another possible step in said evolution. And not, be it noted, an unprecedented one — see the top marginal rates in the middle of the last century. No argument that it is worth arguing whether this particular step is a good idea, either as a practical or moral matter. But it’s nothing like a radical change in the way we have done things.
What we have–I think–is an agreed set of rules and a social contract that has been evolving for 250 years or thereabouts, almost entirely for the better. It is a contract that millions of people depend on. One of the things many of us depend on is stability, including the stability that flows from a constitutionally limited government.
And what we are discussing here is another possible step in said evolution. And not, be it noted, an unprecedented one — see the top marginal rates in the middle of the last century. No argument that it is worth arguing whether this particular step is a good idea, either as a practical or moral matter. But it’s nothing like a radical change in the way we have done things.
Good morning all, just woke up and my, we’ve been busy bees. McT is in his golf cart, but I’d just ask him to take a look back over the thread and note that my first comment was simply identifying what he had posted earlier and I only commented again after he called me by name.
After italics clean up, the other thing I provide for free is the space to reconsider your arguments. If you don’t think it is worth anything, that’s your loss, not mine…
Good morning all, just woke up and my, we’ve been busy bees. McT is in his golf cart, but I’d just ask him to take a look back over the thread and note that my first comment was simply identifying what he had posted earlier and I only commented again after he called me by name.
After italics clean up, the other thing I provide for free is the space to reconsider your arguments. If you don’t think it is worth anything, that’s your loss, not mine…
One principle I’m not on board with is getting down on someone for having too much, even if I think there most definitely is such a thing as ‘too much.’
There is doubtless some of that going on. But not much here. It doesn’t (at least to me) appear to be unhappiness with people having wealth so much with as what some of them are doing with it. Specifically, what they are doing that results in their being able to get more, while others are suffering from less.
That’s why you will find people speaking ill of, for example, the Koch brothers but not of Warren Buffett. Not just because they disagree philosophically with them, although that does enter in to it. But because the perception (feel free to argue that it is wrong) is that the Koch brothers are working specifically and particularly to make themselves yet better off. Whereas Buffett is working at something he enjoys, while letting his wealth get spent (via the Gates Foundation, IIRC) to help others.
One principle I’m not on board with is getting down on someone for having too much, even if I think there most definitely is such a thing as ‘too much.’
There is doubtless some of that going on. But not much here. It doesn’t (at least to me) appear to be unhappiness with people having wealth so much with as what some of them are doing with it. Specifically, what they are doing that results in their being able to get more, while others are suffering from less.
That’s why you will find people speaking ill of, for example, the Koch brothers but not of Warren Buffett. Not just because they disagree philosophically with them, although that does enter in to it. But because the perception (feel free to argue that it is wrong) is that the Koch brothers are working specifically and particularly to make themselves yet better off. Whereas Buffett is working at something he enjoys, while letting his wealth get spent (via the Gates Foundation, IIRC) to help others.
Where does the state have the right to confiscate anyone’s property for no better reason that the people so voted?
Any change of law in a democracy could be said to happen “for no better reason than that the people so voted”. Characterizing votes that way is nonsensical.
Obviously, if the people so vote, then they have their reasons. There are definitely some plausibly good ones they could use for voting for reducing wealth accumulation, if it ever came to that.
Now, as to whether the specific right to ‘confiscate’ earnings or wealth above a certain level, exists in the Constitution at present, I don’t know. I’m not entirely sold on such a scheme myself, and would tend to favor simply a very high upper marginal tax rate, along with aggressive enforcement of anti-trust laws, corporate ethics codes, etc.
But if you wanted one, I’m not sure there aren’t plausible avenues. For one, the ‘confiscate’ bit assumes you have it in the first place — but it’s not clear to me that, say, making it illegal to earn the billionth and first dollar would necessarily be the same as confiscating it. (And if you do, of course there’d be a court proceeding at the end of which it would be duly seized.)
But note that I didn’t specify the current Constitution. The Constitution itself makes provisions for its own adjustment, and this has happened once or twice before. Those changes do not appear to have brought an end to constitutionally limited government,
despite happening, essentially, because the people so voted, and I don’t see any particular reason to think another one would, if it were deemed necessary by enough people.
Where does the state have the right to confiscate anyone’s property for no better reason that the people so voted?
Any change of law in a democracy could be said to happen “for no better reason than that the people so voted”. Characterizing votes that way is nonsensical.
Obviously, if the people so vote, then they have their reasons. There are definitely some plausibly good ones they could use for voting for reducing wealth accumulation, if it ever came to that.
Now, as to whether the specific right to ‘confiscate’ earnings or wealth above a certain level, exists in the Constitution at present, I don’t know. I’m not entirely sold on such a scheme myself, and would tend to favor simply a very high upper marginal tax rate, along with aggressive enforcement of anti-trust laws, corporate ethics codes, etc.
But if you wanted one, I’m not sure there aren’t plausible avenues. For one, the ‘confiscate’ bit assumes you have it in the first place — but it’s not clear to me that, say, making it illegal to earn the billionth and first dollar would necessarily be the same as confiscating it. (And if you do, of course there’d be a court proceeding at the end of which it would be duly seized.)
But note that I didn’t specify the current Constitution. The Constitution itself makes provisions for its own adjustment, and this has happened once or twice before. Those changes do not appear to have brought an end to constitutionally limited government,
despite happening, essentially, because the people so voted, and I don’t see any particular reason to think another one would, if it were deemed necessary by enough people.
Good morning to you, lj, and thanks for the clean-up.
On the good capitalist principle that it’s better to teach a man to fish, could you (re)post whatever magic incantation (if any) we garden-variety commenters can use to fix our own italics screw-ups?
–TP
Good morning to you, lj, and thanks for the clean-up.
On the good capitalist principle that it’s better to teach a man to fish, could you (re)post whatever magic incantation (if any) we garden-variety commenters can use to fix our own italics screw-ups?
–TP
How to remove italics issues?
First, try using Preview and looking at it. (Something that I fail to do all too often!)
Second, if it’s someone else who has made the mess, try putting a < / i > at the beginning of your own post to flush it out. (Extra’s of those can’t do any harm.) Note that it may require a < / em > instead, depending on how the italics were created originally.
If it still doesn’t go away, you’re stuck waiting AFAICT.
How to remove italics issues?
First, try using Preview and looking at it. (Something that I fail to do all too often!)
Second, if it’s someone else who has made the mess, try putting a < / i > at the beginning of your own post to flush it out. (Extra’s of those can’t do any harm.) Note that it may require a < / em > instead, depending on how the italics were created originally.
If it still doesn’t go away, you’re stuck waiting AFAICT.
What wj said, but I went and fixed the closing tag in the comment that was problematic while wj added closing tags to the his own comment, underlining the fact that you can drop as many closing tags as you like and it won’t cause any problems. I usually only do that when there is a link that is screwed up, but since I wanted to post a comment, I did it this time. Again, totally free.
What wj said, but I went and fixed the closing tag in the comment that was problematic while wj added closing tags to the his own comment, underlining the fact that you can drop as many closing tags as you like and it won’t cause any problems. I usually only do that when there is a link that is screwed up, but since I wanted to post a comment, I did it this time. Again, totally free.
wj,
I never hit “Post” except from “Preview” mode, but of course the “looking at it” part is key. I think this may be the 2nd time in 10 years that I looked, but did not see. Thanks for the tips!
–TP
wj,
I never hit “Post” except from “Preview” mode, but of course the “looking at it” part is key. I think this may be the 2nd time in 10 years that I looked, but did not see. Thanks for the tips!
–TP
Tony, actually, it wasn’t your comment, it was a comment before yours that caused the problem.
Tony, actually, it wasn’t your comment, it was a comment before yours that caused the problem.
Only a small minority of people commit the crime of (fill in the blank – “murder” if you want to be over the top)…
Wouldn’t want to outvote the murderers!!!
And, no, I’m not equating people with tons of money or huge incomes with murderers, but this oppressed-minority notion applies. Usually, when one speaks of minorities in this way, it’s based on something more intrinsic to the person, very often by birth and unavoidable.
Only a small minority of people commit the crime of (fill in the blank – “murder” if you want to be over the top)…
Wouldn’t want to outvote the murderers!!!
And, no, I’m not equating people with tons of money or huge incomes with murderers, but this oppressed-minority notion applies. Usually, when one speaks of minorities in this way, it’s based on something more intrinsic to the person, very often by birth and unavoidable.
Have been out too much and haven’t gotten caught up, but after a quick dip —
Where does the state have the right to confiscate anyone’s property for no better reason that the people so voted?
Confiscate is such a loaded word.
But — there’s the not-obscure concept of eminent domain, just for starters.
And — is property law somehow more sacred than tax law?
“Mine” has various possible meanings, from the law of the jungle (it’s “mine” because I took it and I’m strong enough to keep it), to however it’s defined within an actual legal system.
Given the existence of tax laws, it doesn’t even make sense to say that the government / the voters took something of “mine.” If I owe it in taxes, according to the law it was never “mine” in the first place.
Have been out too much and haven’t gotten caught up, but after a quick dip —
Where does the state have the right to confiscate anyone’s property for no better reason that the people so voted?
Confiscate is such a loaded word.
But — there’s the not-obscure concept of eminent domain, just for starters.
And — is property law somehow more sacred than tax law?
“Mine” has various possible meanings, from the law of the jungle (it’s “mine” because I took it and I’m strong enough to keep it), to however it’s defined within an actual legal system.
Given the existence of tax laws, it doesn’t even make sense to say that the government / the voters took something of “mine.” If I owe it in taxes, according to the law it was never “mine” in the first place.
Or, to go back to my rivers/lakes/oceans metaphor (yes, all metaphors have their limits), tax law could be envisioned as being like a community regulating how much of a particular resource — water, buying power, whatever — I’m allowed to fence off as “mine.”
Or, to go back to my rivers/lakes/oceans metaphor (yes, all metaphors have their limits), tax law could be envisioned as being like a community regulating how much of a particular resource — water, buying power, whatever — I’m allowed to fence off as “mine.”
I’m glad that wj started this discussion, since it gives me a chance to (further) advance my own taxation hobbyhorse:
LOW (zero?) taxation on wages/salaries.
MEDIUM taxation on dividends/interest/royalties/estates
HIGH taxation on capital gains.
That would get a bit closer to a “wealth tax”, without directly taxing the wealth; all of the above privileges money earned by the sweat of ones brow, rather than “passive” income, and has the extra benefit of preventing economic bubbles.
I think there was some very early (c. 1790) USSC judge that declared that “the power to tax is the power to destroy”. And Congress certainly has the power to tax. So talking about tax rates in apocalyptic terms has been baked into the debates from the very beginning.
I’m glad that wj started this discussion, since it gives me a chance to (further) advance my own taxation hobbyhorse:
LOW (zero?) taxation on wages/salaries.
MEDIUM taxation on dividends/interest/royalties/estates
HIGH taxation on capital gains.
That would get a bit closer to a “wealth tax”, without directly taxing the wealth; all of the above privileges money earned by the sweat of ones brow, rather than “passive” income, and has the extra benefit of preventing economic bubbles.
I think there was some very early (c. 1790) USSC judge that declared that “the power to tax is the power to destroy”. And Congress certainly has the power to tax. So talking about tax rates in apocalyptic terms has been baked into the debates from the very beginning.
it can be interesting to read the actual statements of the founders on these issues. not that we are bound to agree with them, or follow their example, but just to get a sense of what they had in mind.
in general, i think they were not in favor of public redistribution of wealth.
and in general, i think they were very much against accumulations of great wealth in privte hands. oddly, perhaps, given that many of them were rich.
not my field, really, but my sense is that they envisioned a broad base of ownership. land, mostly, in their time.
grow your own!
but speculative finance capital being the dominant force in the ecoomy that it is now would, i think, make them puke.
some trees of liberty might even get watered.
it can be interesting to read the actual statements of the founders on these issues. not that we are bound to agree with them, or follow their example, but just to get a sense of what they had in mind.
in general, i think they were not in favor of public redistribution of wealth.
and in general, i think they were very much against accumulations of great wealth in privte hands. oddly, perhaps, given that many of them were rich.
not my field, really, but my sense is that they envisioned a broad base of ownership. land, mostly, in their time.
grow your own!
but speculative finance capital being the dominant force in the ecoomy that it is now would, i think, make them puke.
some trees of liberty might even get watered.
John Adams.
John Adams.
and in general, i think they were very much against accumulations of great wealth in privte hands. oddly, perhaps, given that many of them were rich.
George Washington, only recently beaten out by him who can not be named, was the second wealthiest president followed by Thomas Jefferson.
List of Presidents of the United States by net worth
and in general, i think they were very much against accumulations of great wealth in privte hands. oddly, perhaps, given that many of them were rich.
George Washington, only recently beaten out by him who can not be named, was the second wealthiest president followed by Thomas Jefferson.
List of Presidents of the United States by net worth
Thomas Jefferson died in debt. Not sure what that list means.
He lived large, to be sure.
Thomas Jefferson died in debt. Not sure what that list means.
He lived large, to be sure.
John F. Kennedy is second in this list.
The 10 Richest U.S. Presidents: With Donald Trump set to become the richest president in U.S. history, we look back to see who were the richest ever occupants of the Oval Office.
John F. Kennedy is second in this list.
The 10 Richest U.S. Presidents: With Donald Trump set to become the richest president in U.S. history, we look back to see who were the richest ever occupants of the Oval Office.
John F. Kennedy is second in this list.
This I find plausible (although, again, with TJ so high on the list, I don’t really trust the list).
John F. Kennedy is second in this list.
This I find plausible (although, again, with TJ so high on the list, I don’t really trust the list).
I see that my second link refers to Joe Kennedy as being a bootlegger which he very likely was not.
I see that my second link refers to Joe Kennedy as being a bootlegger which he very likely was not.
Also, the lists are different, CharlesWT. Seems like if the list is significant, it should get its act together. 🙂
Also, the lists are different, CharlesWT. Seems like if the list is significant, it should get its act together. 🙂
I suspect there’s a bit of handwaving when trying to pin net worths to historical figures.
I suspect there’s a bit of handwaving when trying to pin net worths to historical figures.
There’s quite a bit of handwaving involved in trying to pin a net worth to even the current occupant of the old casa blanca.
There’s quite a bit of handwaving involved in trying to pin a net worth to even the current occupant of the old casa blanca.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/money-measure-everything-pricing-progress/543345/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/money-measure-everything-pricing-progress/543345/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/
how i fix italics:
write a post that contains this at the start:
</p></em></p></i>
</p></em></p></i>
that is: end a paragraph, turn off ’em’ italics, end a paragraph, turn off ‘i’ italics, repeat.
and then cast the incantation: Italiexo!.
how i fix italics:
write a post that contains this at the start:
</p></em></p></i>
</p></em></p></i>
that is: end a paragraph, turn off ’em’ italics, end a paragraph, turn off ‘i’ italics, repeat.
and then cast the incantation: Italiexo!.
Good ol’ Pempi!
Good ol’ Pempi!
Or, to go back to my rivers/lakes/oceans metaphor (yes, all metaphors have their limits), tax law could be envisioned as being like a community regulating how much of a particular resource — water, buying power, whatever — I’m allowed to fence off as “mine.”
Interesting to note that in the case of actual rivers, a subject on which the Constitution is silent, there are wildly varying rules in different states based on a veritable pantheon of made-up legal principles. I’m particularly fond of two. One likens a river to a turkey running through the woods (which led to some fairly dumb decisions, but at least the judge was poetic). The other is Texas, where they simply declared naturally occurring surface waters to be the property of the state, to be distributed as the state sees fit. During the last big drought, the state decided that farmers in certain areas should be put out of business in order to keep some electric generating plants running.
Or, to go back to my rivers/lakes/oceans metaphor (yes, all metaphors have their limits), tax law could be envisioned as being like a community regulating how much of a particular resource — water, buying power, whatever — I’m allowed to fence off as “mine.”
Interesting to note that in the case of actual rivers, a subject on which the Constitution is silent, there are wildly varying rules in different states based on a veritable pantheon of made-up legal principles. I’m particularly fond of two. One likens a river to a turkey running through the woods (which led to some fairly dumb decisions, but at least the judge was poetic). The other is Texas, where they simply declared naturally occurring surface waters to be the property of the state, to be distributed as the state sees fit. During the last big drought, the state decided that farmers in certain areas should be put out of business in order to keep some electric generating plants running.
Re: riparian law, there are two main sources in the USA: English (where walking across a field would result in a series of small ponds forming in your footsteps), and Spanish (where OMFG, this wet stuff is rare and precious!).
If humanity ever makes it to space in a big way, I expect there to be similar developments for stuff like ‘air’, that would seem completely alien to groundhuggers.
Re: riparian law, there are two main sources in the USA: English (where walking across a field would result in a series of small ponds forming in your footsteps), and Spanish (where OMFG, this wet stuff is rare and precious!).
If humanity ever makes it to space in a big way, I expect there to be similar developments for stuff like ‘air’, that would seem completely alien to groundhuggers.
If humanity ever makes it to space in a big way, I expect there to be similar developments for stuff like ‘air’, that would seem completely alien to groundhuggers.
A Heinlein excerpt:
“Was Earthside once and heard expression, ‘Free as air.’ This air isn’t free, you pay for every breath.”
“Really? No one has asked me to pay to breathe.” He smiled. “Perhaps I should stop.”
“Can happen, you almost breathed vacuum tonight. But nobody asks you because you’ve paid. For you, is part of round-trip ticket; for me it’s a quarterly charge.”
If humanity ever makes it to space in a big way, I expect there to be similar developments for stuff like ‘air’, that would seem completely alien to groundhuggers.
A Heinlein excerpt:
“Was Earthside once and heard expression, ‘Free as air.’ This air isn’t free, you pay for every breath.”
“Really? No one has asked me to pay to breathe.” He smiled. “Perhaps I should stop.”
“Can happen, you almost breathed vacuum tonight. But nobody asks you because you’ve paid. For you, is part of round-trip ticket; for me it’s a quarterly charge.”
The other is Texas, where they simply declared naturally occurring surface waters to be the property of the state, to be distributed as the state sees fit.
Too bad it’s only surface waters. I read a fascinating article a few years ago on the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, and what it was going to mean for farming in America, and how T Boone Pickens was plundering it (main link to some info below the extract):
A Texas law granting landowners unrestricted rights to the water beneath their property makes it possible for Pickens to sell groundwater from his 24,000-acre Mesa Vista Ranch in the Texas panhandle to metropolises as far away as Dallas and El Paso
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-ogallala-aquifer/
The other is Texas, where they simply declared naturally occurring surface waters to be the property of the state, to be distributed as the state sees fit.
Too bad it’s only surface waters. I read a fascinating article a few years ago on the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, and what it was going to mean for farming in America, and how T Boone Pickens was plundering it (main link to some info below the extract):
A Texas law granting landowners unrestricted rights to the water beneath their property makes it possible for Pickens to sell groundwater from his 24,000-acre Mesa Vista Ranch in the Texas panhandle to metropolises as far away as Dallas and El Paso
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-ogallala-aquifer/
Property rights – or the lack thereof – surrounding water are always in the back of my mind in discussions like these.
There are just so many approaches, and most of them — at least in the US West — are kind of a historical mess which is leading to all sorts of trouble these days.
I despair of fixing them, but at least they are a vivid illustration of just exactly how made up and arbitrary property rights are, including the allocations of income and wealth which flow therefrom.
Property rights – or the lack thereof – surrounding water are always in the back of my mind in discussions like these.
There are just so many approaches, and most of them — at least in the US West — are kind of a historical mess which is leading to all sorts of trouble these days.
I despair of fixing them, but at least they are a vivid illustration of just exactly how made up and arbitrary property rights are, including the allocations of income and wealth which flow therefrom.
@Michael Cain — as a side story, this reminds me of something that happened when I lived north of Milwaukee, on Lake Michigan. It took place more than 30 years ago, so I may be misremembering some details, but the gist applies.
A guy who owned a place a few houses north of us decided to start building a “jetty” (aka mountain/peninsula) in an attempt to stop his bank from eroding into the lake. (Of course, the bank was eroding in the first place mostly because he, or a previous owner, had stupidly cut the trees for the sake of the view.)
The neighbors to the south of him, fearing that his peninsula would stop the south-flowing sediment that offset normal erosion from their banks, triggering more serious erosion downstream of him, got a committee together to try to figure out how to stop him.
I moved away not long after this started, so I never heard how it turned out, but there was a legal battle brewing that involved federal, state, county, and town governments, all with various jurisdictional roles. The feds (represented by the Army Corps of Engineers), the state, and the county all had distinct responsibilities relating to the lake, and the town, at the very least, could issue (or not) permits for the hundreds of dump trucks of fill the guy was bringing in.
It was a mess. But meanwhile, the trucks kept coming…..
@Michael Cain — as a side story, this reminds me of something that happened when I lived north of Milwaukee, on Lake Michigan. It took place more than 30 years ago, so I may be misremembering some details, but the gist applies.
A guy who owned a place a few houses north of us decided to start building a “jetty” (aka mountain/peninsula) in an attempt to stop his bank from eroding into the lake. (Of course, the bank was eroding in the first place mostly because he, or a previous owner, had stupidly cut the trees for the sake of the view.)
The neighbors to the south of him, fearing that his peninsula would stop the south-flowing sediment that offset normal erosion from their banks, triggering more serious erosion downstream of him, got a committee together to try to figure out how to stop him.
I moved away not long after this started, so I never heard how it turned out, but there was a legal battle brewing that involved federal, state, county, and town governments, all with various jurisdictional roles. The feds (represented by the Army Corps of Engineers), the state, and the county all had distinct responsibilities relating to the lake, and the town, at the very least, could issue (or not) permits for the hundreds of dump trucks of fill the guy was bringing in.
It was a mess. But meanwhile, the trucks kept coming…..
There have been local battles in Maine over selling water rights to Poland Spring, which was once a local Maine company and is now owned by Nestle.
The first time I went to Ireland (1979) (or was it the second…1990), there was a fight going on over some entrepreneur’s plan/desire to ship water from Ireland to the Middle East. The proponents kept shouting “Jobs! JOBS! THIS WILL CREATE JOBS for Irish people!” I think the total # of jobs was going to be … maybe 21? And naturally no one really knew what the effect on the local ecology would have been to withdraw the quantities of surface water they were talking about.
Then there’s the notion of watering dry places with water from the Great Lakes…..
There have been local battles in Maine over selling water rights to Poland Spring, which was once a local Maine company and is now owned by Nestle.
The first time I went to Ireland (1979) (or was it the second…1990), there was a fight going on over some entrepreneur’s plan/desire to ship water from Ireland to the Middle East. The proponents kept shouting “Jobs! JOBS! THIS WILL CREATE JOBS for Irish people!” I think the total # of jobs was going to be … maybe 21? And naturally no one really knew what the effect on the local ecology would have been to withdraw the quantities of surface water they were talking about.
Then there’s the notion of watering dry places with water from the Great Lakes…..
And in California, one of the biggest on-going political battles (for over half a century to my personal knowledge) is over shipping water from Northern California to Southern California. There are enormous canals running down the Central Valley to LA.** LA, which is in a desert, but where transplants from the far wetter East want to have the same kind of water-hungry green lawns that they grew up with.
The current battle involves a tunnel under the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta to transport yet more water south. At noone really knows what impact to either the Delta or the San Francisco Bay. But the prospect of something like what happened to the Colorado River (essentially zero water reaches the sea) is not appealing.
** To be fair, the cities around the San Francisco Bay also pipe most of their water from the Sierra Nevada snowpacks. But it is far less controversial.
And in California, one of the biggest on-going political battles (for over half a century to my personal knowledge) is over shipping water from Northern California to Southern California. There are enormous canals running down the Central Valley to LA.** LA, which is in a desert, but where transplants from the far wetter East want to have the same kind of water-hungry green lawns that they grew up with.
The current battle involves a tunnel under the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta to transport yet more water south. At noone really knows what impact to either the Delta or the San Francisco Bay. But the prospect of something like what happened to the Colorado River (essentially zero water reaches the sea) is not appealing.
** To be fair, the cities around the San Francisco Bay also pipe most of their water from the Sierra Nevada snowpacks. But it is far less controversial.
LA, which is in a desert, but where transplants from the far wetter East want to have the same kind of water-hungry green lawns that they grew up with.
That happened in Phoenix too, right? Or Arizona in general? Also, my understanding is that all those easterners who came out partly to get away from their allergies ended up bringing in the same old plants (not just grassy lawns) and starting the whole cycle all over again.
Who designed the human race, anyhow? 😉
LA, which is in a desert, but where transplants from the far wetter East want to have the same kind of water-hungry green lawns that they grew up with.
That happened in Phoenix too, right? Or Arizona in general? Also, my understanding is that all those easterners who came out partly to get away from their allergies ended up bringing in the same old plants (not just grassy lawns) and starting the whole cycle all over again.
Who designed the human race, anyhow? 😉
There have been local battles in Maine…
Long ago, when I lived in NJ and there was a moderate drought (by western standards, an extended dry spell rather than a drought), it was entertaining to listen to all of the local water districts in the Delaware River basin who thought they had plenty of water in their reservoirs howl when they learned that a many-year-old interstate water compact required them to make large releases into the river to keep the salt line below Philadelphia’s intake pipes.
More recently, I’m greatly enjoying Georgia’s court cases over sharing with Alabama and Florida, and attempting to correct a surveying error on the state border made in 1818 that keeps them from diverting water from the Tennessee River to Atlanta.
I live in Colorado, which is in court regularly when we are sued (or are suing) over the seven interstate river compacts we operate under. It’s hard to keep track, but I think we (a) have settled with Kansas, (b) are being sued by Texas, and (c) are threatening to sue Arizona.
There have been local battles in Maine…
Long ago, when I lived in NJ and there was a moderate drought (by western standards, an extended dry spell rather than a drought), it was entertaining to listen to all of the local water districts in the Delaware River basin who thought they had plenty of water in their reservoirs howl when they learned that a many-year-old interstate water compact required them to make large releases into the river to keep the salt line below Philadelphia’s intake pipes.
More recently, I’m greatly enjoying Georgia’s court cases over sharing with Alabama and Florida, and attempting to correct a surveying error on the state border made in 1818 that keeps them from diverting water from the Tennessee River to Atlanta.
I live in Colorado, which is in court regularly when we are sued (or are suing) over the seven interstate river compacts we operate under. It’s hard to keep track, but I think we (a) have settled with Kansas, (b) are being sued by Texas, and (c) are threatening to sue Arizona.
Something just read, the Srnicek
Amazon web services, almost entirely b2b
“AWS is now the most rapidly growing part of Amazon – and also the most profitable, with about 30 per cent margins”
30% margins from business customers. What do grocery stores get, a couple percent. The difference is the gullibility of entrepreneurs, the soggy brains of those who think they are special and deserve different outcomes. These people are great marks.
Private business and the market is stupid corrupt, inefficient, and incredibly wasteful…more so than gov’ts.
The accounting and economics is designed to disguise the worthlessness of the free enterprise system, eg the long term DOW numbers and indices don’t include the cos that fail and are dropped.
Something just read, the Srnicek
Amazon web services, almost entirely b2b
“AWS is now the most rapidly growing part of Amazon – and also the most profitable, with about 30 per cent margins”
30% margins from business customers. What do grocery stores get, a couple percent. The difference is the gullibility of entrepreneurs, the soggy brains of those who think they are special and deserve different outcomes. These people are great marks.
Private business and the market is stupid corrupt, inefficient, and incredibly wasteful…more so than gov’ts.
The accounting and economics is designed to disguise the worthlessness of the free enterprise system, eg the long term DOW numbers and indices don’t include the cos that fail and are dropped.
30% margins from business customers. What do grocery stores get, a couple percent. The difference is the gullibility of entrepreneurs
Hogwash. The difference is competition. Groceries are available from multiple local outlets. A grocery store which charges more than those around it better have a really got reason to show their customers. And if they try to run at more than a couple of percent profit, someone else (probably someone already in the business with established supply chains) will come along and undercut them.
For things like web services, there are a very limited number of providers. And demand is exploding. So competition is limited. Result: high prices. It doesn’t really matter whether the provider is a small number of businesses or a small number (or just one) of governments** — lack of competition produces higher prices.
** Sorry if that conflicts with your communist philosophy. But that’s what the data shows.
30% margins from business customers. What do grocery stores get, a couple percent. The difference is the gullibility of entrepreneurs
Hogwash. The difference is competition. Groceries are available from multiple local outlets. A grocery store which charges more than those around it better have a really got reason to show their customers. And if they try to run at more than a couple of percent profit, someone else (probably someone already in the business with established supply chains) will come along and undercut them.
For things like web services, there are a very limited number of providers. And demand is exploding. So competition is limited. Result: high prices. It doesn’t really matter whether the provider is a small number of businesses or a small number (or just one) of governments** — lack of competition produces higher prices.
** Sorry if that conflicts with your communist philosophy. But that’s what the data shows.
How Capitalism Tamed Medieval Europe: Knights and their wars get a lot of attention, but the merchant was the real hero of the European Middle Ages.
How Capitalism Tamed Medieval Europe: Knights and their wars get a lot of attention, but the merchant was the real hero of the European Middle Ages.
As I understand it, grocery stores make 1 or 2% on SALES. That’s a very different thing from ROI. If you sell $1.00M of inventory for $1.02M, once, you have a tiny profit. If you do it 50 times a year, you make $1M annual gross profit on your $1M inventory investment. Sure, you have to pay wages, rent, etc. out of that gross profit, so your ROI is considerably less than 100% annually. But it’s still a long way from 1-2%.
–TP
As I understand it, grocery stores make 1 or 2% on SALES. That’s a very different thing from ROI. If you sell $1.00M of inventory for $1.02M, once, you have a tiny profit. If you do it 50 times a year, you make $1M annual gross profit on your $1M inventory investment. Sure, you have to pay wages, rent, etc. out of that gross profit, so your ROI is considerably less than 100% annually. But it’s still a long way from 1-2%.
–TP
Oh hell, shouldn’t
wj is talking about monopoly profits intellectual rents temp gains to innovation and first mover advantages
the question is why b’s will pay that exorbitant fee when it can only gain them a short term advantage are their profits so small or declining that they need to take this risk wherefore this capitalist desire
well, yeah. Monopoly capitalism, or post-(MP) directly causes declining profits in the other capitals while simultaneously instilling that very irrational exuberance and overconfidence we saw in 1928 and 2006 as coattails of tech change get incompetent dependents
and that irrational overconfidence we saw in 1914 and 1937 and 2002
Oh hell, shouldn’t
wj is talking about monopoly profits intellectual rents temp gains to innovation and first mover advantages
the question is why b’s will pay that exorbitant fee when it can only gain them a short term advantage are their profits so small or declining that they need to take this risk wherefore this capitalist desire
well, yeah. Monopoly capitalism, or post-(MP) directly causes declining profits in the other capitals while simultaneously instilling that very irrational exuberance and overconfidence we saw in 1928 and 2006 as coattails of tech change get incompetent dependents
and that irrational overconfidence we saw in 1914 and 1937 and 2002
Knights and their wars get a lot of attention, but the merchant was the real hero of the European Middle Ages.
As regards the decline of knights as a military institution, I think the real hero might be the crossbow. Pierces armor, at a distance.
Sadly, the demise of knights did not herald the demise of wars.
Merchants can probably take at least partial credit for the decline of feudalism as a social system.
Knights and their wars get a lot of attention, but the merchant was the real hero of the European Middle Ages.
As regards the decline of knights as a military institution, I think the real hero might be the crossbow. Pierces armor, at a distance.
Sadly, the demise of knights did not herald the demise of wars.
Merchants can probably take at least partial credit for the decline of feudalism as a social system.
wj is talking about monopoly profits intellectual rents temp gains to innovation and first mover advantages
I find this sentence to be oddly poetic in a haiku-ish sort of way.
wj is talking about monopoly profits intellectual rents temp gains to innovation and first mover advantages
I find this sentence to be oddly poetic in a haiku-ish sort of way.
Also, too – I’m not sure that late medieval / early Renaissance merchants and merchant-based trading constituted capitalism as we consider it now.
More like mercantilism, which is more or less what Adam Smith was arguing against.
Last but not least – the rise of merchant trading and mercantilist city-states did not, unfortunately, tame Europe.
WWI, maybe, can take credit for that.
Also, too – I’m not sure that late medieval / early Renaissance merchants and merchant-based trading constituted capitalism as we consider it now.
More like mercantilism, which is more or less what Adam Smith was arguing against.
Last but not least – the rise of merchant trading and mercantilist city-states did not, unfortunately, tame Europe.
WWI, maybe, can take credit for that.
wj,
One of the biggest reasons why I don’t live in the US is the water. I read a book on SoCal water issues when doing some research work there, and decided I don’t want to live in an area which is only days from dying of thirst, should certain canals break. The extremely bad air quality didn’t help, either.
In Finland, water law is a really arcane issue, mostly because the waters are usually owned by the real estate law villages (which is their only function), and the ownership is almost impossibly diluted. Thus, it is not usually possible for anyone to make an actual private law contract with the water owner, which is a mostly-fictional entity without any kind of representatives or administration. Happily, the law provides for the government being able to grant administrative permissions that substitute private contracts.
However, when it comes to actually using water, the law is clear:
1) Private home’s domestic consumption near the water source trumps everything else
2) Then comes the municipal water supply, both locally and regionally
3) Local industry comes third
4) Non-local use is only allowed if the local needs are satisfied.
wj,
One of the biggest reasons why I don’t live in the US is the water. I read a book on SoCal water issues when doing some research work there, and decided I don’t want to live in an area which is only days from dying of thirst, should certain canals break. The extremely bad air quality didn’t help, either.
In Finland, water law is a really arcane issue, mostly because the waters are usually owned by the real estate law villages (which is their only function), and the ownership is almost impossibly diluted. Thus, it is not usually possible for anyone to make an actual private law contract with the water owner, which is a mostly-fictional entity without any kind of representatives or administration. Happily, the law provides for the government being able to grant administrative permissions that substitute private contracts.
However, when it comes to actually using water, the law is clear:
1) Private home’s domestic consumption near the water source trumps everything else
2) Then comes the municipal water supply, both locally and regionally
3) Local industry comes third
4) Non-local use is only allowed if the local needs are satisfied.
One of the biggest reasons why I don’t live in the US is the water. I read a book on SoCal water issues when doing some research work there
SoCal <> “the US”
I’m totally on board with the idea that putting cities of millions of people in deserts is problematic at best. And if you never wanted to live anywhere in the US but SoCal, and SoCal was unacceptable because of the water, fine. But the US is a big and varied place. Deciding not to live here because SoCal has water problems is kind of like deciding not to live in Europe because Ireland is too wet.
One of the biggest reasons why I don’t live in the US is the water. I read a book on SoCal water issues when doing some research work there
SoCal <> “the US”
I’m totally on board with the idea that putting cities of millions of people in deserts is problematic at best. And if you never wanted to live anywhere in the US but SoCal, and SoCal was unacceptable because of the water, fine. But the US is a big and varied place. Deciding not to live here because SoCal has water problems is kind of like deciding not to live in Europe because Ireland is too wet.
Lurker,
I guess I have trouble doing an objective evaluation of Southern California air. All I’m sure of is that it’s lots better than it used to be.
Circa 1970 I spent two weeks a few dozen miles east of LA. (Military training.) The first week was fine. But that weekend I noticed what appeared to be a range of mountains to the west. Sort of reddish. It seemed odd that I hadn’t noticed previously.
Then Monday it arrived. Air to make your eyes stream constantly, and visibility down to a few hundred meters. Hadn’t been mountains at all. That, thankfully, we no longer have there. (But California maintains stricter vehicle pollution standards than the rest of the country, just to make sure it doesn’t return.)
Fun historical note. Long before Europeans arrived, the Indians referred to the LA basin as “The Valley of Smokes” — the synergies with car-generated smog are really nasty.
Lurker,
I guess I have trouble doing an objective evaluation of Southern California air. All I’m sure of is that it’s lots better than it used to be.
Circa 1970 I spent two weeks a few dozen miles east of LA. (Military training.) The first week was fine. But that weekend I noticed what appeared to be a range of mountains to the west. Sort of reddish. It seemed odd that I hadn’t noticed previously.
Then Monday it arrived. Air to make your eyes stream constantly, and visibility down to a few hundred meters. Hadn’t been mountains at all. That, thankfully, we no longer have there. (But California maintains stricter vehicle pollution standards than the rest of the country, just to make sure it doesn’t return.)
Fun historical note. Long before Europeans arrived, the Indians referred to the LA basin as “The Valley of Smokes” — the synergies with car-generated smog are really nasty.
I’m totally on board with the idea that putting cities of millions of people in deserts is problematic at best.
Those cities would likely be a lot smaller if they had had to pay market value for water during most of their existents.
I’m totally on board with the idea that putting cities of millions of people in deserts is problematic at best.
Those cities would likely be a lot smaller if they had had to pay market value for water during most of their existents.
For things like web services, there are a very limited number of providers. And demand is exploding.
Exactly. It’s also a business with pretty substantial economies of scale and network externalities.
The reason people are happy to hand money over to Amazon to run their servers and data warehouses and lamdba jobs and whatever else isn’t that they are idiots, it’s that in many cases spinning up and maintaining their own servers to do the same stuff would cost them much more than it costs Amazon. So much more that even with 30% profit market, Amazon’s way cheaper.
I’m sure there are exceptions — sometimes there’s some laziness involved and someone hasn’t done all the math — but still: turning all the operations headaches over to Amazon is super convenient and worth it for a lot of people.
It also reduces barriers to entry for businesses consuming those services. If you’re spinning up a new app or website, the ability to upload it to AWS and scale from 10 users to 10 million without ever having to build and staff a single data center is pretty damn convenient.
Which does of course mean there’s lots of monopoly hazard there. Especially because once you’re locked in to Amazon’s (or, to a less extent, Google’s or Microsoft’s) whole cozy ecosystem, it’s hard to bust out. Critical parts of those ecosystems (like data warehouse solutions) are not particularly inter-operable or inter-changeable.
For things like web services, there are a very limited number of providers. And demand is exploding.
Exactly. It’s also a business with pretty substantial economies of scale and network externalities.
The reason people are happy to hand money over to Amazon to run their servers and data warehouses and lamdba jobs and whatever else isn’t that they are idiots, it’s that in many cases spinning up and maintaining their own servers to do the same stuff would cost them much more than it costs Amazon. So much more that even with 30% profit market, Amazon’s way cheaper.
I’m sure there are exceptions — sometimes there’s some laziness involved and someone hasn’t done all the math — but still: turning all the operations headaches over to Amazon is super convenient and worth it for a lot of people.
It also reduces barriers to entry for businesses consuming those services. If you’re spinning up a new app or website, the ability to upload it to AWS and scale from 10 users to 10 million without ever having to build and staff a single data center is pretty damn convenient.
Which does of course mean there’s lots of monopoly hazard there. Especially because once you’re locked in to Amazon’s (or, to a less extent, Google’s or Microsoft’s) whole cozy ecosystem, it’s hard to bust out. Critical parts of those ecosystems (like data warehouse solutions) are not particularly inter-operable or inter-changeable.
s/profit market/markup/
s/profit market/markup/
JanieM,
I’ve visited the US also elsewhere than SoCal, and I think I have some appreciation for your country’s almost infinite variation. However, it was in Southern California where I happened to have, at that time, an offer which would have allowed to me to build a scientific career. I am not, definitely, stupid enough to immigrate into a foreign country without a signed job contract. That is a great way to join the ranks of local proletariat, not a way to make a professional career. It is much easier and much more comfortable to do that in one’s native country, so there must be a really good reason for immigration, and for me, the cons outweighed the pros.
JanieM,
I’ve visited the US also elsewhere than SoCal, and I think I have some appreciation for your country’s almost infinite variation. However, it was in Southern California where I happened to have, at that time, an offer which would have allowed to me to build a scientific career. I am not, definitely, stupid enough to immigrate into a foreign country without a signed job contract. That is a great way to join the ranks of local proletariat, not a way to make a professional career. It is much easier and much more comfortable to do that in one’s native country, so there must be a really good reason for immigration, and for me, the cons outweighed the pros.
Lurker, thanks for the gracious reply. I was mostly just bemused by the way you phrased it.
But I have in fact run across people, mostly in Ireland (where I’ve spent by far the bulk of my international travels), who don’t seem to have a sense of the scale of the US. Like, they’re taking their family to Disney World in Florida, and they wonder if they should just hop over and see San Francisco while they’re at it. 😉
Lurker, thanks for the gracious reply. I was mostly just bemused by the way you phrased it.
But I have in fact run across people, mostly in Ireland (where I’ve spent by far the bulk of my international travels), who don’t seem to have a sense of the scale of the US. Like, they’re taking their family to Disney World in Florida, and they wonder if they should just hop over and see San Francisco while they’re at it. 😉
David Graeber contends that there is an inverse relationship between pay and actual usefulness to society:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/more-valuable-your-work-society-less-youll-paid-david-graeber/
Don’t know if I buy the whole thing, but it’s food for thought.
David Graeber contends that there is an inverse relationship between pay and actual usefulness to society:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/more-valuable-your-work-society-less-youll-paid-david-graeber/
Don’t know if I buy the whole thing, but it’s food for thought.
Before clicking the link, if it isn’t blocked at work, does it mention janitors and the disease they keep from spreading?
Before clicking the link, if it isn’t blocked at work, does it mention janitors and the disease they keep from spreading?
Those cities would likely be a lot smaller if they had had to pay market value for water during most of their existents.
hahahaha…who is to say they didn’t? I suspect this raises an issue regarding “markets”.
Those cities would likely be a lot smaller if they had had to pay market value for water during most of their existents.
hahahaha…who is to say they didn’t? I suspect this raises an issue regarding “markets”.
does it mention janitors and the disease they keep from spreading?
In passing, yes.
does it mention janitors and the disease they keep from spreading?
In passing, yes.
From jack lecou’s link:
and
From jack lecou’s link:
and
bobbyp,
Indeed. The question about water’s market value is simply a political one, if the water source and the xonsumer are a thousand miles apart.
First of all, the water probably doesn’t belong solely to the investor who decides to build a canal or pipeline to somewhere else. She probably needs political help to get the right to do the diversion, and at the least, if there is political will, the water diversion can most likely be prohibited by the community. So, allowing a “market” to form is a political decision.
Second, the routing of a thousand mile canal or a pipeline is, anywhere on the planet, impossible without government using eminent domain or granting land rights for land that it already owns. So, the government holds sway over the formation of the market.
Third, because the decision to allow water diversion is political, selection of the investor is also. For example, the basic decision whether to use private or public money for the project is a political one. It is also possible to allow a monopoly or oligopoly.
Considering these decisions, which determine the nature of the market, we see that at the time before the construction of the water project, the term “market value” is absurd, and afterwards, it is determined by the political decisions done to create and regulate the market.
bobbyp,
Indeed. The question about water’s market value is simply a political one, if the water source and the xonsumer are a thousand miles apart.
First of all, the water probably doesn’t belong solely to the investor who decides to build a canal or pipeline to somewhere else. She probably needs political help to get the right to do the diversion, and at the least, if there is political will, the water diversion can most likely be prohibited by the community. So, allowing a “market” to form is a political decision.
Second, the routing of a thousand mile canal or a pipeline is, anywhere on the planet, impossible without government using eminent domain or granting land rights for land that it already owns. So, the government holds sway over the formation of the market.
Third, because the decision to allow water diversion is political, selection of the investor is also. For example, the basic decision whether to use private or public money for the project is a political one. It is also possible to allow a monopoly or oligopoly.
Considering these decisions, which determine the nature of the market, we see that at the time before the construction of the water project, the term “market value” is absurd, and afterwards, it is determined by the political decisions done to create and regulate the market.
A dialogue I have going on in my head:
Phoenix person: Why should you have the right to natural resources you didn’t create just because they happen to be where you live or on the land you own?
Colorado River Person: One important reason I came here was because of the natural resources that were available. Why should you get to take them?
Phoenix Person: One of the important reasons I came here was because I expected to be able to take water from somewhere else and have it brought here. Same thing, right?
A dialogue I have going on in my head:
Phoenix person: Why should you have the right to natural resources you didn’t create just because they happen to be where you live or on the land you own?
Colorado River Person: One important reason I came here was because of the natural resources that were available. Why should you get to take them?
Phoenix Person: One of the important reasons I came here was because I expected to be able to take water from somewhere else and have it brought here. Same thing, right?
Considering these decisions, which determine the nature of the market, we see that at the time before the construction of the water project, the term “market value” is absurd, and afterwards, it is determined by the political decisions done to create and regulate the market.
It is also worth noting that, at the time a lot of the water projects in the West were created, there were a lot fewer people. The idea that the population might expand explosively simply wasn’t in anybody’s mind. People don’t, typically, look a century plus down the line — certainly not with anything approaching accuracy. So giving a city the (vaguely if at all defined, but at least nominally unlimited) “rights” to a particular flow of water wasn’t going to be a problem for anyone, nearby or far away.
And the market price, given a huge volume of supply vs demand, was damn small. Today, on the other hand….
Considering these decisions, which determine the nature of the market, we see that at the time before the construction of the water project, the term “market value” is absurd, and afterwards, it is determined by the political decisions done to create and regulate the market.
It is also worth noting that, at the time a lot of the water projects in the West were created, there were a lot fewer people. The idea that the population might expand explosively simply wasn’t in anybody’s mind. People don’t, typically, look a century plus down the line — certainly not with anything approaching accuracy. So giving a city the (vaguely if at all defined, but at least nominally unlimited) “rights” to a particular flow of water wasn’t going to be a problem for anyone, nearby or far away.
And the market price, given a huge volume of supply vs demand, was damn small. Today, on the other hand….
Those cities would likely be a lot smaller if they had had to pay market value for water during most of their existents.
The reason for California’s extensive system for moving water, for the Central Arizona Project, and for most long distance transport (at least in the American West) is because distant cities can afford to pay much higher prices for the water rights than local farmers/ranchers can. Under Eaton and Mulholland, LA could afford to buy Owens Valley land with senior water rights, build an aquaduct to transport the water 200 miles, and deliver it to LA customers at a (for people living in LA at the time) modest price.
In Colorado, in any debate about water, you eventually hear the sentence, “Agriculture uses >90% of water diversions in the state to produce <5% of state GDP.”
In Arizona, Intel’s big fab line uses about as much water per acre as an Arizona cotton farmer (integrated circuit production is fairly water-intense business). Guess which can afford to pay more for it?
Those cities would likely be a lot smaller if they had had to pay market value for water during most of their existents.
The reason for California’s extensive system for moving water, for the Central Arizona Project, and for most long distance transport (at least in the American West) is because distant cities can afford to pay much higher prices for the water rights than local farmers/ranchers can. Under Eaton and Mulholland, LA could afford to buy Owens Valley land with senior water rights, build an aquaduct to transport the water 200 miles, and deliver it to LA customers at a (for people living in LA at the time) modest price.
In Colorado, in any debate about water, you eventually hear the sentence, “Agriculture uses >90% of water diversions in the state to produce <5% of state GDP.”
In Arizona, Intel’s big fab line uses about as much water per acre as an Arizona cotton farmer (integrated circuit production is fairly water-intense business). Guess which can afford to pay more for it?
hairshirthedonist,
Considering that all of them live on land stolen from Indians, I have some trouble feeling strongly for either of them. 🙂
hairshirthedonist,
Considering that all of them live on land stolen from Indians, I have some trouble feeling strongly for either of them. 🙂
Fortunately for me, I live in New Jersey! Oh, wait… Well, it was stolen longer ago. Everybody’s pretty much forgotten about it.
Fortunately for me, I live in New Jersey! Oh, wait… Well, it was stolen longer ago. Everybody’s pretty much forgotten about it.
Everybody’s pretty much forgotten about it.
I doubt it.
Or were you being snarky?
Everybody’s pretty much forgotten about it.
I doubt it.
Or were you being snarky?
The next time you see some crazy bob (cf mcmanus or yours truly) write “property is theft” give this well known remark the serious consideration it deserves.
pretty please.
The next time you see some crazy bob (cf mcmanus or yours truly) write “property is theft” give this well known remark the serious consideration it deserves.
pretty please.
I think Icelanders, and most probably, a lot of Pacific Islanders are the only people who can safely feel smug about not having taken their land from somebody else at some point.
AFAICT, there’s been far to much a-coming and a-going and a-warring pretty much anywhere else. Including at least a couple waves of settlement in the Americas.
Maybe Aboriginal Australians are ok, but it’s hard to be sure there weren’t a few different waves there too, in the mists of prehistory.
I think Icelanders, and most probably, a lot of Pacific Islanders are the only people who can safely feel smug about not having taken their land from somebody else at some point.
AFAICT, there’s been far to much a-coming and a-going and a-warring pretty much anywhere else. Including at least a couple waves of settlement in the Americas.
Maybe Aboriginal Australians are ok, but it’s hard to be sure there weren’t a few different waves there too, in the mists of prehistory.
23andMe says I have more Neanderthal variants than 93% of the people they’ve tested. I demand my share of Neanderthal repreations!
23andMe says I have more Neanderthal variants than 93% of the people they’ve tested. I demand my share of Neanderthal repreations!
“23andMe says I have more Neanderthal variants than 93% of the people they’ve tested.”
So, you and Ugh need to swap screen names? Sounds plausible.
“23andMe says I have more Neanderthal variants than 93% of the people they’ve tested.”
So, you and Ugh need to swap screen names? Sounds plausible.
Neanderthal repreations!
Dumb Neanderthals never could spell right. That’s why you guys lots!
Neanderthal repreations!
Dumb Neanderthals never could spell right. That’s why you guys lots!
Dumb Neanderthals never could spell right. That’s why you guys lots[sic]!
Hmmmm…
Dumb Neanderthals never could spell right. That’s why you guys lots[sic]!
Hmmmm…
This eat the rich thread seems to have quieted down, but I thought this article was apropos.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/26/superyachts-something-goes-wrong-raise-the-anchor
This eat the rich thread seems to have quieted down, but I thought this article was apropos.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/26/superyachts-something-goes-wrong-raise-the-anchor
Just 8 men own same wealth as half the world.
Just 8 men own same wealth as half the world.
Due to weak and nonexistent property rights, there’s a tremendous amount of dead capital globally.
“De Soto estimates there is US$ 9.3 trillion in dead capital globally. The US$ 9.3 trillion are assets owned by poor or middle-class people in emerging economies which cannot be realized due to poor policies, procedures or bureaucracy.”
Dead Capital
Due to weak and nonexistent property rights, there’s a tremendous amount of dead capital globally.
“De Soto estimates there is US$ 9.3 trillion in dead capital globally. The US$ 9.3 trillion are assets owned by poor or middle-class people in emerging economies which cannot be realized due to poor policies, procedures or bureaucracy.”
Dead Capital
Or were you being snarky?
Absolutely
Or were you being snarky?
Absolutely
New article in Nature says there’s evidence of mysterious, stone-tool-using early homonins butchering Rhinos in the Philippines three quarters of a million years ago.
Yeesh. You really did have to wake up pretty damn early in the dawn of time to get anywhere first.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0072-8.epdf
New article in Nature says there’s evidence of mysterious, stone-tool-using early homonins butchering Rhinos in the Philippines three quarters of a million years ago.
Yeesh. You really did have to wake up pretty damn early in the dawn of time to get anywhere first.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0072-8.epdf
Roseanne booted.
Roseanne booted.
Not so sure about Iceland. There is a high probability that the ancestors of the modern Icelanders found some Irish monks living there when they arrived. What happened to those is unknown (fled, killed, enslaved?).
Not so sure about Iceland. There is a high probability that the ancestors of the modern Icelanders found some Irish monks living there when they arrived. What happened to those is unknown (fled, killed, enslaved?).
Roseanne booted.
well, that was a blunder.
Roseanne booted.
well, that was a blunder.
How long before we get a Trump tweet expressing outrage at the MSM for “silencing a voice of ‘real Americans'”?
How long before we get a Trump tweet expressing outrage at the MSM for “silencing a voice of ‘real Americans'”?
I’m guessing Barr is off of Goodman, Metcalf, and Gilbert’s Christmas card lists.
I’m guessing Barr is off of Goodman, Metcalf, and Gilbert’s Christmas card lists.
Roseanne booted.
That was quick enough to not only show where the hegemony is but the extent of its power. The show was gold to the network.
The hegemony doesn’t get everything it wants, or even want what it wants, the contestation and marginal enemies are what gives it legitimacy, distracts the mass with a spectacle, and provides a defense from classist (for instance) criticism.
Roseanne booted.
That was quick enough to not only show where the hegemony is but the extent of its power. The show was gold to the network.
The hegemony doesn’t get everything it wants, or even want what it wants, the contestation and marginal enemies are what gives it legitimacy, distracts the mass with a spectacle, and provides a defense from classist (for instance) criticism.
That was quick enough to not only show where the hegemony is but the extent of its power.
Yes. Swift and sure. “The hegemony” knows on which side its bread is buttered, but the circus shall continue, cf Colin Kapernick and “involuntary unemployment”.
The show was gold to the network.
It was looking like it was going to be a sure fire hit. But Barr’s in-your-face racism was too obvious, even for “the hegemony”, and she was consigned to loss leader status.
No big deal.
(classist criticism) Even well meaning oppressors are strung up from lampposts when the tumbrils roll. (/classist criticism)
That was quick enough to not only show where the hegemony is but the extent of its power.
Yes. Swift and sure. “The hegemony” knows on which side its bread is buttered, but the circus shall continue, cf Colin Kapernick and “involuntary unemployment”.
The show was gold to the network.
It was looking like it was going to be a sure fire hit. But Barr’s in-your-face racism was too obvious, even for “the hegemony”, and she was consigned to loss leader status.
No big deal.
(classist criticism) Even well meaning oppressors are strung up from lampposts when the tumbrils roll. (/classist criticism)
a teachable moment : “Don’t be a dick”.
Especially not on Twitter.
a teachable moment : “Don’t be a dick”.
Especially not on Twitter.
a teachable moment : “Don’t be a dick”.
Especially not on Twitter.
Awkwardly, while the moment may be “teachable”, some individuals demonstrably are not. I submit that Ms Barr is not even the most prominent example extant.
a teachable moment : “Don’t be a dick”.
Especially not on Twitter.
Awkwardly, while the moment may be “teachable”, some individuals demonstrably are not. I submit that Ms Barr is not even the most prominent example extant.
some learn more slowly than others
some learn more slowly than others