281–290 of 328 posts
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> We need to be pragmatic and get our people and economy through this crisis OK, tax the rich. PS: It was the winning strategy before the crisis too.
What income do you consider the rich? I thought we were all in agreement, but I recently saw some Pew research that had me surprised.
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Large amounts of government money go towards discretionary transfers like medicare, medicaid, social security, SNAP, etc. Is your claim that you think vast amounts of that money don't get to where they're supposed to go? I think most of these programs are characterized by extremely low administration costs as a percentage of budget.
My claim is that raising taxes won't by itself bring an effective program to fight income inequality into existence. The poll question is like asking "should the federal government expand its office space to deal with income inequality" - how's anyone supposed to know without an explanation of what it'll be used for?
Raising taxes on rich people changes the post-tax distribution to have less inequality, so it does literally bring into place a program to "fight income inequality." Given the fact that most government revenue goes towards social security, medicare, medicaid, you already know what it will be spent on and there already are effective programs.
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What income do you consider the rich? I thought we were all in agreement, but I recently saw some Pew research that had me surprised.
The commonly used definition, even among non-economists, comes from the OECD and Eurostat. You are rich if your equivalised household income is over 150% of the median.
Definitely not the definition that people with household income over 150% of the median seem to be using.
Looks like The Onion was right on with their reporting: "Study Finds Most Restaurants Fail Within First Year Of It Becoming Illegal To Go To Them"
> "Study Finds Most Restaurants Fail Within First Year Of It Becoming Illegal To Go To Them Even without these laws, personal decisions would have decimated the business regardless. Even in places didn't shut down, patronage plummeted.
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> If the landlords didn't want to deal with loans then they should have paid cash for the properties. If the tenants didn't want to pay rent, they should not have signed leases. Why is it that tenants can get a break on their obligations but landlords can't? Why are tenants more deserving of help? Most landlords are not rich. They are providing a service to their tenants, who cannot afford to purchase buildings and w…
Because landlords are trying to profit off of the conditions created by the broader local community. They make a bet on which space created by the community will allow them to extract more rent than the cost to maintain the building and pay the loan, and later sell the property for more than they paid. Tenants are either members of the community who want a home, or are trying to provide a service to the community. On…
If there were no landlords, it would be impossible to start a business in NYC without buying a building. Most businesses would never be able to afford that. Thank goodness there are landlords who are willing to rent out their buildings!
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When a landlord goes bust nothing happens, other the financial loss for the landlord. It's like the old saying "when you own the $10,000, that's your problem", "when you own the bank $1B, that's the banks problem". When 1/3 of NYC commercial real estate gets foreclosed, that's not just the landlord's problem, that's everyone's problem.
When 1/3 of NYC gets foreclosed the new tenants will swarm to rent the places at a discount and reopen the cafes and everything else as soon as they're allowed to operate.
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Link to the Pew research? It reminds me of way back in 2000 when the NDP Party of Canada (left wing) said "we need to tax the rich way more" and a reporter finally asks "what do you mean by rich?" and the NDP leader inferred "a family of four making more than $60,000".[1] That turned some heads, especially among the labor unions who typically vote NDP and typically make more than that. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/can…
> https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/01/09/most-americans-sa... Namely what stood out, > Among Americans with the highest incomes – a subset of upper income adults who are in the top 7% of the sample’s adjusted income distribution – about a third (34%) of those who say there’s too much economic inequality say the government should raise taxes on people like them to deal with this, while 64% say this should not be d…
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My claim is that raising taxes won't by itself bring an effective program to fight income inequality into existence. The poll question is like asking "should the federal government expand its office space to deal with income inequality" - how's anyone supposed to know without an explanation of what it'll be used for?
> that raising taxes won't by itself bring an effective program to fight income inequality into existence. Raising taxes on rich people changes the post-tax distribution to have less inequality, so it does literally bring into place a program to "fight income inequality." Given the fact that most government revenue goes towards social security, medicare, medicaid, you already know what it will be spent on and there a…
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No country is coming out of this unscathed. Even the ones that kept their cases low are going to be in a world of economic hurt. And they have far few ways to weather the storm than Western countries.
You're kidding, right? Look at unemployment rates in the EU or Japan compared to the US. These are all first-world countries and yet there is still a vast difference in outcome. There are various degrees of being scathed. "Everyone gets scathed" is not an argument. Some did way, way better than others.
And again, I wouldn't call out a "winner" just yet. Those decisions will likely have vastly different impacts post-epidemic.
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Collecting rents is not the same as "rent seeking".
It's exactly the same. "Rent seeking" means to increase your share of wealth without creating new wealth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
If I buy a piece of land a build a house on it and rent it out, I'm adding value to society by creating value.