50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says • Hacker News Board

Re: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

#151

Post by wing-_-nuts » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

shans wrote: post #131

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>put self through college working >Works 60 hour weeks, most Saturdays, some Sundays ... I don't give a damn about the 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps and work hard' virtue signaling. Half. He should pay half. So should everyone else above 400k / yr. The rich are able to succeed by virtue of the fact that we have schools, roads, other infrastructure. If you're in the top 1% of income, you should pay in the top 1…

And while we are at this, I am very interested in another thought experiment. * Person 1: income $400k per year, lives in California -- must spend $1.5M+ to afford a 4 BR home for a family of 4 -- must spend $15 per hour on child care workers because of minimum wage laws -- spends an average of $20 per person per meal, because of all the costs baked into the price of goods and services in the state -- spends 10 - 12%…

400k+ is a high enough threshold that I'm confident it would not be too much of an imposition anywhere. A person living in SF or NYC chooses to live there. (Were I emperor, taxes would be much simpler and have much fewer exceptions)

Re: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

#152

Post by wing-_-nuts » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

dennis_jeeves wrote: post #132

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #36

This is only tangentially on topic, but I genuinely wonder about this. When people state that they want the wealthy to pay their fair share, the first two questions I have are, what constitutes wealthy and what constitutes fair? Let's take a specific person as an example of wealthy (let me know if you don't agree), and I'd be grateful to hear your thoughts: Wealthy Person X: - CEO, 55 years old, University of Illinoi…

>When people state that they want the wealthy to pay their fair share, What they mean is that they are jealous of the rich. They are want the rich to the equally poor through some cosmic egalitarian enforcer. Anyway personal opinion - all forms of income tax is plain theft.

>Anyway personal opinion - all forms of income tax is plain theft.

By that rational, your using the infrastructure paid by those taxes is also theft right?

Re: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

#153

Post by otikik » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #123

otikik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is always the same: a gradual tax on his income. So the first, say, 40k he pays is taxed at, say 10%. The next 60k at 15%. And so on. Don't concentrate on the numbers, concentrate on the concept: As brackets go up, the higher the taxed percentage. It never comes to 100% but it should be quite high after the first million. Why I think this is fair? Because it is no longer possible for people to "put themsel…

I'm curious about the notion of becoming wealthy by extracting wealth. Here are four ways to increase one's wealth, which of the four is an extraction: 1. Earning a salary. Generally speaking, the larger the organization and the higher the position the higher the salary. 2. Investing in stock. The more a company grows, the more valuable the stock becomes, the more the investor's stock is worth. 3. Owning a home. The…

If a group gets wealthier while everyone else gets poorer, then the first group has extracted that wealth from the second group.

The thing about taxes is that they act on groups and equalize things. They are what makes (or, should make) this ficticious person of your pay for the construction of a road that he will never step on, or for a school that his children will never use.

The wealthier they are, the more they have extracted. Thus the more they should be taxed. It is really not that difficult.

Re: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

#154

Post by throwaway894345 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #104

throwaway894345 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, we could and should also charge adjustments for goods and services produced that don’t meet some standard for labor and environmental standards so American companies can compete (for example, a border-adjusted carbon tax). Similarly, end the subsidies that allow for cheaper shipping from China than a neighboring state. If anything, I would expect “trickle-down economics” to have reduced globalization, si…

Buying from cheap places will help them get out of poverty though. Which would in turn solve most problems.

It only creates extreme inequality in both countries. In the wealthier country, managers make lots of money by outsourcing labor, causing the cost of labor in the wealthier country to plummet.

In the poorer country, it creates a class of ultra-rich businessmen who rule over the ultra-poor laborers (and those laborers must remain ultra-poor otherwise the jobs would flow back to the laborers in the wealthier country).

Not only that, but the poorer country isn't going to adhere to environmental standards of the wealthier country (absent coercion a la border adjustments), and so it basically becomes a way for businesses in the wealthier country to continue to enrich themselves by way of pollution (and otherwise mismanagement of environment).

Re: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

#155

Post by otikik » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #108

otikik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is always the same: a gradual tax on his income. So the first, say, 40k he pays is taxed at, say 10%. The next 60k at 15%. And so on. Don't concentrate on the numbers, concentrate on the concept: As brackets go up, the higher the taxed percentage. It never comes to 100% but it should be quite high after the first million. Why I think this is fair? Because it is no longer possible for people to "put themsel…

Except if you provide a useful service people want to exchange money for then you made society better off even if you don't pay any taxes ever. This is obvious yet so often missed by the "rich people evil" rhetoric. If you think people are enriching themselves unjustly focus on fixing those mechanism instead of punishing those who make the world a better place for everyone around them.

> if you provide a useful service people want to exchange money for then you made society better off even if you don't pay any taxes ever

Society will be even better if you do that and pay taxes.

> If you think people are enriching themselves unjustly focus on fixing those mechanism instead of punishing those who make the world a better place for everyone around them.

The purpose of taxes is not punishment. Consider that maybe it is you who is fixated into the wrong thing.

Re: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

#156

Post by dennis_jeeves » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #152

dennis_jeeves wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When people state that they want the wealthy to pay their fair share, What they mean is that they are jealous of the rich. They are want the rich to the equally poor through some cosmic egalitarian enforcer. Anyway personal opinion - all forms of income tax is plain theft.

>Anyway personal opinion - all forms of income tax is plain theft. By that rational, your using the infrastructure paid by those taxes is also theft right?

Gosh, how did I overlook that, good catch!

Re: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

#157

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

wffurr wrote: post #149

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a nice just-so story, but it's not supported by the evidence. Here is the evidence: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S It is supported by the evidence. > You can read for yourself in the original paper, but the authors used a pretty sophisticated approach to measuring taxes: So sophisticated a model that it can measure the impact of a change in tax revenues that didn't meaningfully occur?

That chart says absolutely nothing about tax rates on the rich.

[deleted]

Re: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

#158

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

wffurr wrote: post #149

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a nice just-so story, but it's not supported by the evidence. Here is the evidence: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S It is supported by the evidence. > You can read for yourself in the original paper, but the authors used a pretty sophisticated approach to measuring taxes: So sophisticated a model that it can measure the impact of a change in tax revenues that didn't meaningfully occur?

That chart says absolutely nothing about tax rates on the rich.

If the rich pay most of the taxes (because they have most of the money), and taxes on the poor and middle class didn't meaningfully increase, and the total amount of taxes being paid didn't meaningfully change, what does that tell you about the amount of taxes paid by the rich?

Re: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

#159

Post by mrlonglong » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

Maybe they should make a law if the rich gets tax cuts they must pass it on to the ones at the bottom.

Re: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says

#160

Post by wffurr » Sat, Dec 19, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #158

wffurr wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That chart says absolutely nothing about tax rates on the rich.

If the rich pay most of the taxes (because they have most of the money), and taxes on the poor and middle class didn't meaningfully increase, and the total amount of taxes being paid didn't meaningfully change, what does that tell you about the amount of taxes paid by the rich?

All I have learned from this conversation is that you personally think you can demolish careful detailed work by actual scholars (that I doubt you even read) with a simplistic reading of an single graph, likely to support your pre-conceived ideas about the world and/or your political biases.