Thucy, Where do I begin your education?
#1 fallacy. You treat the "rich" as if they are all powerful and monolithic when in fact they are neither. The rich make mistakes and lose unbelievable amounts of money every single day, and a lot of the "rich" aren't that rich afterwards.
For God's sake how did GM ever go bankrupt in your delusion? The rich control everything thing, manipulate everything, everyone, blah blah blah in the shadows that haunt that empty space between your ears.
So how did GM go bankrupt? Because the rich CEO's it turns out make mistakes just like everyone else and some ambitious guy who wants to be rich pounces on those mistakes and becomes rich himself by not making stupid mistakes.
As the car market keeps growing from 1 million cars a month world wide to 1.25 million (imaginary numbers to illustrate the point) GM gets passed by the more ambitious company.

It happens in software and apps all the time.

Thucy, your stupid false assumption #2 about "natural resources."

Oil wan't an important natural resource in 1700.
Electricity wasn't an important natural resource in 1800.
Lanthanum, Europium, and other rare earths weren't an important natural resource in 1900.

Who knows what "natural resource" we see around us every day and take for granted will be worth a fortune in 100 years. No one does.
Horse urine might become the cure for alzheimer's for all you know.

The old warn out argument that the earth is finite and mankind will destroy it has been around when there were 100 million human beings, 1 billion, 2 billion, blah blah blah.

Go live in a cave because the planet occupied by 7 billion really overmatches your pea brain .

How real economic growth occurs.
I'm sitting here getting ready to make a pitch to a client to consult on a problem his company has.
Right now the problem is keeping his company from growing and costing him money to boot.
Now on if working on the problem right now because he cannot fix it in house.
After I get the job I fix his problem and he pays my companies fee.
Tremendous growth just occurred.
Now the company I helped can spend less money to run day-to-day. This frees up capital for expansion (hiring, purchase of new equipment, etc.)
I get a fee for my work. I always had the solution, but the solution was worthless until the client decided that paying my fee gave him more in return that he gave up. I had nothing for my solution before the fee. Now I have monetized my abilities to solve problems.

No zero sum anywhere in this scenario. Nothing but growth. Two companies voluntarily working together and both are much better off after the association.

That's how it works you ignorant Marxist, zero-sum, don't know business from your ass morons.

Wealth creation is a basic grade 11 economic term, but one that escapes the minds of so many.

Thucy atleast is somewhat knowledge, knowing comparitive advantage. But Thucy, your problem is, is your thinking with your heart, not your brain.

However that being said, TC, your biggest problem is the simple Ad Hominem concept that you don't think of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Please attack peoples arguements, not them.

Thank, I am glad that in your eyes I am at least somewhat knowledge.

I AM KNOWLEDGE.

So to recap, in case you missed it, I don't hate anyone not rich not poor. I don't believe in conspiracies either.

I'm just saying study a little thing called "power relations" and you will see that being rich in itself is not necessarily so bad, it's just the power that comes with that alongside your net worth that can be unjust, and then perpetuates itself, and so on. No single person is responsible for that but that doesn't make it a problem we can't do anything about.

Also "As for your analogy of a corporation known as government. Rather then having the government tax you, take away your profits and spread them around what if companies that committed public good could tax you instead?"

I don't know if you missed my point but my point was that there is no fundamental difference between a corporation and a government except that governments are democratic and responsible for all citizens (theoretically) equally, corporations are responsible to shareholders only.

So sometimes shareholders' interests are not in the public interest. This is when it becomes proper for the government to regulate business. It's as simple as that.

And when you're doing things along the lines of poisoning water supplies in a country like India, well your ass needs to get regulated. Whine about taxes and wealth creation if you want but damned if any government worth its salt is going to let a company drive a whole nation or planet into the ground.

Of course, when the company more or less buys off those governments, or there is a revolving door, or a conflict of interest, you have a big problem.

That's all I'm saying.

People like TC hear me insisting on certain roles for government and they hear "I HATE BUSINESS ALL PEOPLE IN BUSINESS ARE DEMONS THE WORLD WOULD BE BETTER WITH NO BUSINESSES"

no. fuck that shit. dont be a dumbass. thank christ almighty for the free market capitalist system. you are correct we have brought a shit ton of people out of poverty thanks to specialization and profit motive and the like.

as i said, democracy is similar for governments as free markets are to economies. government officials in democracy, even if they themselves are narcissistic pricks, will theoretically be better governors than just dictators who are drunk with power, because if they want power they have to please the people. same for selfish CEOs and so on. The free market system takes that selfishness and drives it toward the common good - to get rich you have to figure out what people want and provide it to them,

It's just that nothing made by people is perfect, so you end up with bullshit populist "bread and circuses" propaganda nonsense in democracies, and you end up with shady-ass backroom deals in companies, like cartels and monopolies and misleading advertisement. throw in the tragedy of the commons and you have a serious problem, but it's not as though nothing can be done.

you do what you can do. you abandon what doesn't work. laissez-faire is just as shitty as system as a command economy and everyone knows it. i know you know it fasces im talking more to LF sympathizers

"I'm just saying study a little thing called "power relations" and you will see that being rich in itself is not necessarily so bad, it's just the power that comes with that alongside your net worth that can be unjust, and then perpetuates itself, and so on. No single person is responsible for that but that doesn't make it a problem we can't do anything about."
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I admit this, which is why I can admit that the biggest weakness of Laissez-Faire is that oligopolies and monopolies break the system. However a centrally planned government is technically a monopoly (if you really want to use the government is a corporation theory).

"I don't know if you missed my point but my point was that there is no fundamental difference between a corporation and a government except that governments are democratic and responsible for all citizens (theoretically) equally, corporations are responsible to shareholders only. "
There are so many differences:
1. Corporations have to abide to the law of competition, governments didn't (they might with the continual rise of globalization)\
2. Corporations have a profit motif to guide their policies, governments have an 'election' motif. A sucessful politician will always make multiple promises that he can't keep to get elected, this happens more rarely in the corporate world.
3. Corporations don't force their board of directors/CEO to resign every other business cycle, yet governments have that every other political cycle. This means CEOs generally look more in the long term, while for a politician, any bill that he passes which the effects aren't seen until after the next election, has committed political suicide.
4. Corporations have a shorter life expectancy, 20 years is the average lifespan of a corporation, 250 years is the average life expectancy of a government. This is not because governments have more merit, but because its easier to sustain a government.
5. The corporate world moves a lot faster. Price wars, stock market jumps or falls happen daily, but governments take a lot longer to react. Had any corporation had a deadlocked board of directors for half a year they would have gone bankrupt.
6. Corporations generally have managers promoted based on merit, not charisma. As I have grown older I have started to see the advantages of having leaders based more on charisma then merit (making my oppinoin of democracy less negative), but it is still a point.
7. In government you are accountable to all your constituents, who all ever different agenda's and all expect different things from you and sometimes you will have to change your mind on certain issues to stay in power. In the corporate world your accountable to shareholders, who all have an identical agenda, this means while the objectives of government are rarely clear, corporations have one clear objective.

Governments and corporations are different, they have different powers, different responsibilities and different objectives. I really dislike the comparison between them since they are completely different.

"So sometimes shareholders' interests are not in the public interest. This is when it becomes proper for the government to regulate business. It's as simple as that. "
I think the biggest mistake in government regulation that encouraged economic growth (it did encourage growth but still) was forcing companies to make preferred shareholders loose their vote.

I know there is drawbacks and benefits to both but imagine if companies were accountable to both preferred and common shareholders, rather then just common.

Preferred shares, which have less market fluctuations but higher dividend pay outs prefer long term stability, while common shareholders prefer instant profits.

"And when you're doing things along the lines of poisoning water supplies in a country like India, well your ass needs to get regulated. Whine about taxes and wealth creation if you want but damned if any government worth its salt is going to let a company drive a whole nation or planet into the ground."
That is illegal, and yeah in that case the government should step in. On the other hand for the most part that doesn't happen, corporations value public relations, on top of that killing off consumers will hurt their business...

"Of course, when the company more or less buys off those governments, or there is a revolving door, or a conflict of interest, you have a big problem."
agreed

"no. fuck that shit. dont be a dumbass. thank christ almighty for the free market capitalist system. you are correct we have brought a shit ton of people out of poverty thanks to specialization and profit motive and the like."
A lot of communists/socialists disagree, its frustrating the number of idiotic socialists who refuse to admit/believe that nothing good has come from capitalism.

Even Marx admitted that capitalism had advantages and that he saw capitalism as a gateway into socialism. Where capitalism would get the community to maximize their wealth so that there was enough wealth to distribute when the time came.

"as i said, democracy is similar for governments as free markets are to economies. government officials in democracy, even if they themselves are narcissistic pricks, will theoretically be better governors than just dictators who are drunk with power, because if they want power they have to please the people"
The main issue is they spend more time manipulating the population and making empty promises then doing whats best for the people. Also generally speaking the people don't understand whats best for them, some people don't understand wealth creation, about comparative advantages, about tax policies and their negative or positive effects on growth.

Take England for example, England has one of the highest income tax rates in the world, one that is so high England is slowly loosing its comparative advantage in the finance sector to America and Asia. Many economists suggest that the tax rate is on the right side of the laffer curve, and that lowering it would actually increase revenue and increase growth in the dying finance industry and save the economy. Yet England's politicians are forced to go against the finance industry because of a lot of bad slack they have gotten in recent years, such as #occupy London.

Although lowering the tax rate would produce more government revenue, increase what use to be one of Englands largest exports, and over all strengthen the economy, it would be political suicide and no democracy would be willing to do it. I know that the rich have to pay taxes, and I sometimes favoured the democrats over the repubiclans in last years deficit debate, as it should come from both cuts and increases, but class warfare is still, imo wrong, and shouldn't be done, thats why I am against the occupy movement.

I think that given the main advantage a dictatorship has is the people making decisions know what they are doing and can make decisions more easily. Also the reality is, a dictatorship is still accountable to the people, and the Arab Spring proves that, you shit on the people to long and they will rise up, meanwhile in China, a dictatorship policy that has brought massive amounts of wealth to its people has seen better political stability.

Not super important to your point but:

'250 years is the average life expectancy of a government"

Where are you getting that from? Are you just not counting the rapid succession of governments in the developing world since decolonization or what?

I'd say the life expectancy of a government on average is maybe more like 30 years. Around 1 generation. Multi-century governments appear to the be the exception not the rule. Hell even Spain and Italy and Germany all have governments less than 200 years old. France only 200 or so.

But what about, say, Nigeria? Like 12 years. The Philippines? Young. Etc. w/e not important.



"The main issue is they spend more time manipulating the population and making empty promises then doing whats best for the people. Also generally speaking the people don't understand whats best for them, some people don't understand wealth creation, about comparative advantages, about tax policies and their negative or positive effects on growth."

You are correct, this is a principle weakness of democracy. But it maps to a principle weakness of business - business can just placate its shareholders and proceed to fuck over other people; they are not properly incentivized against externalities like polluting peoples' drinking water or testing weapons in residential neighborhoods or whatever so long as they make money at it. And sure there's a government to stop that stuff, but just as the people who are supposed to hold the governments' reins are stupid/can be bought off, the government is stupid/can be bought off by business.

And so there you go. Power relations.

PS

" On the other hand for the most part that doesn't happen, corporations value public relations, on top of that killing off consumers will hurt their business..."

Try not to make me laugh to keep from crying so much.

Do you know anything about... the world? This shit happens all the time. The companies are concerned to a degree with their image, yes, so what they do is cover that shit up more than they just don't do it.

Nigerian oil spills, Indian water pollution by Coca Cola, pesticide plant explosions, illegal waste dumping off the coasts of poor countries, you name it man.

"Where are you getting that from? Are you just not counting the rapid succession of governments in the developing world since decolonization or what?"
Anarchy doesn't count as government...

Not sure where I got the number from, its just been a number that has been floating around past political debates for a while.

"Power relations."
I get that corporations can be evil and have done evil things. But like government does to, and I don't think over-regulatin them is nesscarilly the best way to stop it.

most corporations wont break the law in the name of profits,they'll just outsource their problems to other countries were they are legal.

I know its harsh, but just because they occasionally do bad, doesn't mean we should over regulated them or prevent them from forming at all. They also do a lot of good, cars wouldn't be as good as they are today, computers would have never become consumer goods.

Most technological advancements of the past century has been from the private sector. I'm not saying all like a lot of pro-capitalists, but I still don't think it should be over looked and that we should value them.

I also think that in some cases (oil industry for example), deregulation could help them out. No more subsidies would really cut short their profits. and 5 of the 6 most profitable companies in the world are oil companies (The 6th being Walmart), so any claim to merit the need for subsidies sorta ends right there.

The belief that if we stopped subsidizing them oil industries would jack up their prices is a little far fetched if there is enough competition and viable alternatives, which in the modern world there are. If the market was more free then it is today I actually believe we would be less reliant on oil.

Of course oil is just one example, and there are probably many examples that go the other way.

Thucy, I appreciate that you are an adolescent with no attention span, but this thread is about a tax question.

It's not about the vacuous space between your ears and the shadows that inhabit it.

I also appreciate that you are a marxist-statist adolescent who can't comprehend how the real world works without Daily Kos illustrated posts.

So it seems that no one has a response to the fact that raising the marginal tax rate is about as counterproductive as tax policy can get.

Tax policy should extract as much revenue as possible without driving any money into counter productive tax shelters.

Could one of you marxist statists tell Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and the other economically out of touch democrats in Washington this?

Jesus Christ Tettleton's Chew. You are one hell of a guy. Real stand up character. Real man of integrity. I admire you know.

I hope when I'm old I can be half the wise man you are. I hope I am half the little misguided boy you were when you were twenty years old.

Teach me about tax policy Tettleton.

What is the correct answer? I love you.

Will you please be the godfather to my children.

"This thread assumes that the economy is not a zero-sum system, but instead assumes that the economy is a dynamic system capable of real growth.
Thus any assumed increase in wealth results from the output of productive activity, and does not diminish the wealth of anyone else at all."

-And this is why your thread is stupid.

Thucy, do you need some kleenex to dry your eyes while you are feeling sorry for yourself little boy?

@dd: read anyone of my posts and you'll see that the economy is capable of growth .Its threads like these that convince me that TC is not a troll, or he is but sometimes comes up with good points.

TC why did you fuck my bitch.

Thucy, how does it feel to be an adolescent misogynist? Be careful or your mommy will wash your mouth out with soap when you get home from school.

^do you support pro-life laws such as mandatory ultrasounds for women seeking abortions in texas. no rly i wanna know

TC, I think the appropriate question to be asked is, "How do we maximize revenue from taxes?" Assuming any kind of model, there must be an application for that model. If all of the data shows that lower taxes on the wealthiest members of the nation brings in more tax revenue than higher taxes, then clearly there must exist an equation (albeit a very complicated one) that measures the tax rate on each income level, the income at each level, and the tax revenue generated in total.

So raising taxes on the rich *decreases* total tax revenue, right? And lowering taxes actually *increases* total tax revenue, right? Okay, at some point, the taxes can only go so low before they begin decreasing tax revenue again.

Surely there exists (even conceptually) a model that predicts optimal taxation. Do you know of such a model? If so, I think the discussion could be directed to something a little more concrete (such as the optimal taxation model) and less abstract (which, from my skimmed reading, this seems to be mostly conceptual conversation).

@fasces, I was really refering to this line in particular: "...and does not diminish the wealth of anyone else at all." Wealth, like everything else, is purely relative. In a competitive system, it's all about having an edge over your competitors. When growth/decline occurs (and it occurs all the time), unless it's evenly distributed, it simply moves relative wealth around. And no, you can't quantify wealth so it's not relative, because the value of anything and everything is relative to everything else. Again, when growth occurs, the relative values change, which is what causes the wealth to shift between individuals.

No dd, wealth is not relative and is not finite, it can be created and destroyed (you wouldn't argue about wealth being destroyed when 2008 came round) yet if wealth can't be created but only destroyed then why are we richer today then we were 2000 years ago?

You can't deny were not richer, less of us are in poverty, we have computers, the internet, cars, phones.

What we have today is beyond their wildest dreams, yet we have it now. Thats wealth creation proven there.

And I am also surprised a diplomat made the arguement about competition.

In a winner-takes-all diplomacy game, only 1 person can win, 7 people started. THey are competiting against each other to get to that 1 person. From what your claiming, you wouldn't use allies to get there, you would stick it out by yourself.

Although it isn't a perfect analogy of the real world, it still resembles an important factor, when 2 enemies collaborate against a 3rd enemy. This collaboration still happens in competition, and is ever true in the game of diplomacy.

"and is not finite"
I never said it was finite...

"From what your claiming, you wouldn't use allies to get there, you would stick it out by yourself."

Errr... when did I say anything like that?

However, there is a finite limit to how much produce we can have before the world is destroyed, provided we don't move on to other sources like asteroids and other planets. But most of that is locked away for now...

"In a winner-takes-all diplomacy game, only 1 person can win, 7 people started. THey are competiting against each other to get to that 1 person. From what your claiming, you wouldn't use allies to get there, you would stick it out by yourself."

You just proved that despite collaboration there is only one winner in the end who takes in the wealth of the others, thanks for rebutting your own argument.

I suppose it's not exactly zero-sum, because the base resources continue to increase, but it's the amount of resources you have compared to everyone else that really matters, and as such, by increasing your production and having more resources as a result, it lowers the value of others' resources of the same type. (Remind you of why counterfeiting screws the economy?)

"Wealth, like everything else, is purely relative. In a competitive system, it's all about having an edge over your competitors. When growth/decline occurs (and it occurs all the time), unless it's evenly distributed, it simply moves relative wealth around. And no, you can't quantify wealth so it's not relative, because the value of anything and everything is relative to everything else. Again, when growth occurs, the relative values change, which is what causes the wealth to shift between individuals."
I got the wealth is finite and everyone is competing for it, and that competition is hurting them out of this.

"However, there is a finite limit to how much produce we can have before the world is destroyed, provided we don't move on to other sources like asteroids and other planets. But most of that is locked away for now..."
Hence my support for space exploration. Certain substances are finite:
Gold, Oil, etc.

However, we can produce enough food to support 6 billion people. We have enough renewable energy to sustain ourselves for billion years (if we start using it, which the governments are preventing by subsidizing oil)

"You just proved that despite collaboration there is only one winner in the end who takes in the wealth of the others, thanks for rebutting your own argument."
"Although it isn't a perfect analogy of the real world"
I never said that in capitalism there had to be one winner (ever heard of a 2 way draw?) and I also said that it wasn't a perfect analogy.

"I suppose it's not exactly zero-sum, because the base resources continue to increase, but it's the amount of resources you have compared to everyone else that really matters"
Ok dd, consider this, you have the choice between living a middle class life in America today;
You probably have a smart phone, a personal computer, you have a reliable means of transportation (either a car or public transit), have health insurance in a country with a life expectancy of 79. You have the opportunity to retire at 65, and live the rest of your life in comfort with your social security and the amount you saved (if you saved).

Or you could choose to live an aristocrat in the 14th century. Your people are dying of the bubonic plague and are starving to death, meanwhile you never have to leave your castle (apart from going hunting which you enjoy), and can sit around all day telling people what to do.

While in the first example, you are not as well off as a lot of people, in the second example you are the best off.

Your not burdened with the stress of ruling an empire, as you only control a farming village which you get all the profits of your serfs labour giving you vasts amount of wealth (some of which goes to the crown). You don't have to fight enemies, you just do what you want. Yet you have no computer, you have no smart phone, you have no car, your life expectancy is only ~50.

An average american today vs a well off aristocrat. I would probably take the average American life, but thats just me.

As for money, I am well aware:
P=MV/Q
P is the price level
M is the supply of money
V is the speed in which money is spent
Q is the aggregate expenditure, or total value, of the goods in the economy.

Increase the supply of money (counterfeiting does that), Price level increases
Decrease the number of goods in the economy, Price level will also increase (although that might not make sense think about it. If there are $10 in the economy, and 5 goods of equal value, the price of each good would then be $2, if there were now 3 goods, the price of each would have to go up)

Although counterfeiting does ruin fiat money, its better then using barter or gold as a form of money. (I know certain republicans like the Gold Standard, but there is a reason why switched out, cause the demand for gold vastly exceeded supply)

Dudmdell, I would submit what I think it was of the best statements on tax policy, and which only with my own life experience shaped my own world view on taxation.

The problem of the government is to fix rates which will bring in a maximum amount of revenue to the Treasury and at the same time bear not too heavily on the taxpayer or on business enterprises. A sound tax policy must take into consideration three factors. It must produce sufficient revenue for the government; it must lessen, so far as possible, the burden of taxation on those least able to bear it; and it must also remove those influences which might retard the continued steady development of business and industry on which, in the last analysis, so much of our prosperity depends.

Furthermore, a permanent tax system should be designed, not merely for one or two years nor for the effect it may have on any given class of taxpayers but should be worked out with regard to conditions over a long period and with a view to its ultimate effect on the prosperity of the country as a whole. These are the principles on which the Treasury's tax policy is based, and any revision of taxes which ignores these fundamental principles will prove merely a makeshift and must eventually be replaced by a system based on economic rather than political considerations.

There is no reason why the question of taxation should not be approached from a nonpartisan and business viewpoint. In recent years, in any discussion of tax revision, the question which has caused most controversy is the proposed reduction of the surtaxes. Yet recommendations for such reductions have not been confined to either Republican or Democratic administrations. My own recommendations on this subject were in line with similar ones made by Secretaries Houston and Glass, both of whom served under a Democratic President. Tax revision should never be made the football either of partisan or class politics but should be worked out by those who have made a careful study of the subject in its larger aspects and are prepared to recommend the course which, in the end, will prove for the country's best interest.

I have never viewed taxation as a means of rewarding one class of taxpayers or punishing another. If such a point of view ever controls our public policy, the traditions of freedom, justice, and equality of opportunity, which are the distinguishing characteristics of our American civilization, will have disappeared and in their place we shall have class legislation with all its attendant evils. The man who seeks to perpetuate prejudice and class hatred is doing America an ill service. In attempting to promote or to defeat legislation by arraying one class of taxpayers against another, he shows a complete misconception of those principles of equality on which the country was founded. Any man of energy and initiative in this country can get what he wants out of life. But when that initiative is crippled by legislation or by a tax system which denies him the right to receive a reasonable share of his earnings, then he will no longer exert himself and the country will be deprived of the energy on which its continued greatness depends.

This condition has already begun to make itself felt as a result of the present unsound basis of taxation. The existing tax system is an inheritance from the war. During that time the highest taxes ever levied by any country were borne uncomplainingly by the American people for the purpose of defraying the unusual and ever increasing expenses incident to the successful conduct of a great war. Normal tax rates were increased, and a system of surtaxes was evolved in order to make the man of large income pay more proportionately than the smaller taxpayer. If he had twice as much income, he paid not twice but three or four times as much tax. For a short time the surtaxes yielded a large revenue.

But since the close of the war people have come to look upon them as a business expense and have treated them accordingly by avoiding payment as much as possible. The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities or to find other lawful methods of avoiding the realization of taxable income. The result is that the sources of taxation are drying up; wealth is failing to carry its share of the tax burden; and
capital is being diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the government nor profit to the people.

So Dub,

I agree with your statement "..... there exists (even conceptually) a model that predicts optimal taxation...." and the model has existed numerous times.
I would suggest looking at the periods of great American economic expansion since 1913, the first year that both the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Income Tax existed.

The periods of taxation I believe we should emulate are 1922-29. 1964-69, and 1983-1999.
The periods of taxation we should avoid like the plague, 1932-64. 1969-1979.