Defending the One Percent • Hacker News Board

Re: Defending the One Percent

#21

Post by kaybe » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:39 PM UTC

johanneskanybal wrote: post #11

kabouseng wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow lots of strawmen here. "A large number (majority?) of people who are proponents for american-style capitalism, advocating for less government intervention, are from big universities around the U.S" Source? So what? "Boiled down - can people who are part of such a skewed system really produce unbiased studies and theories about the system?" Can people who are part of the lower earning rung of society give a unbias…

Creative quoting on your part but let's not pretend he was talking about communism. It stated pretty clearly [countries with] "highly socialistic economic policy (welfare countries)". All the mentioned countries are successfull capitalistic countries with better safeguards and policies.

Well, in Germany we call the system we're using 'social market economy' and it does not aspire to be pure capitalism.

Re: Defending the One Percent

#22

Post by CPLX » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

Be advised that the most relevant credential for this author is that he was the top economic advisor to the administration of George W. Bush. Defending the 1% is literally what he does for a living.

Re: Defending the One Percent

#23

Post by PythonicAlpha » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

The trouble is not that inequality exists -- I think, that some form is necessary in our world -- but that the inequality is increasing in a rapid rate and that in the current state of our society, not achievements where the society benefits are rewarded by the system, but rather achievements where society looses (e.g. speculations, pure possession of wealth, investing -- whatever frivolous it might be, omitting taxes by using legal holes and off-shore trickery, ....)

Even Buffett spoke out, that his class wins, but it should not (for the good of society). And he said, that something is wrong, when his secretary has to pay a much higher tax-rate as himself.

Re: Defending the One Percent

#24

Post by bargl » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #9

macspoofing wrote: post #8

Isn't the entire 'one percent' debate (in America) centered around the fact that one party wants to institute a modest tax increase on that group, and the other party wants to, irrationally, keep cutting their taxes even when faced with deficits? Nobody reasonable is actually advocating for 'perfect economic equality'. I'm generally a free market guy (in that I believe the free market should be the foundation of the…

and the other party wants to, irrationally, keep cutting their taxes even when faced with deficits One thing we've learned is that never, ever happens. Instead, increased revenues, such as provided by Reagan's tax rate cuts, allows higher leverage AKA deficits. So "starving the beast" seems to be the best approach, until, of course, the accumulated deficits are inevitably reneged on one way or another (e.g. inflation…

It's important to note that they (republicans) tend to want to cut taxes but not services, because they can't compromise and cut both the military and medicare/Medicaid/welfare/etc. They just want to cut the latter.

The lack of compromise leads to neither happening so many republicans really don't want smaller govt. Some do, don't get me wrong. But many don't.

Re: Defending the One Percent

#25

Post by MagicWishMonkey » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:08 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #12

e12e wrote: post #10

The absurd example in the second paragraph put me off, so I didn't really find it in me to read the argument thoroughly. But if the premise is that a single man can "come up with an idea" and magically produce an ipod with comparable personal effort, and no reliance of a third world factory economy -- as an author can come up with a book -- then I don't think the author of the article has the required connection to r…

Did the iPod require a "third world factory economy", or was that merely the best way to make it when it was developed? Go back to the original Apple II and subsequent products, they were per memory and Wikipedia all made in the US until the late 1990s. The IBM PC was originally manufactured by SCI Systems in Huntsville, Alabama.

Well if they doubled the price of iPods in order to manufacture them inside the United States, no one would buy an iPod and the product would fail.

That's not to say American manufacturing would cause the price to double, just pointing out that where you manufacture something is an important part of the product planning process.

Re: Defending the One Percent

#26

Post by hga » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:16 PM UTC

bargl wrote: post #24

hga wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and the other party wants to, irrationally, keep cutting their taxes even when faced with deficits One thing we've learned is that never, ever happens. Instead, increased revenues, such as provided by Reagan's tax rate cuts, allows higher leverage AKA deficits. So "starving the beast" seems to be the best approach, until, of course, the accumulated deficits are inevitably reneged on one way or another (e.g. inflation…

It's important to note that they (republicans) tend to want to cut taxes but not services, because they can't compromise and cut both the military and medicare/Medicaid/welfare/etc. They just want to cut the latter. The lack of compromise leads to neither happening so many republicans really don't want smaller govt. Some do, don't get me wrong. But many don't.

Actually, Republicans can be quite willing to cut the military, remember Dwight "military-industrial complex" Eisenhower, under who it was cut after the Korean War wound down, and you could make a case that the current sequester is cutting the budget. It's very very hard to analyze, because you have to factor in wars, especially ones we did not exactly choose to fight (e.g. Korean), and weapons procurement. E.g. however bogus the F-35 is, or the premature cut of manufacturing the F-22 was, one way or another we'd be spending a lot of money right now replacing the tactical airplanes we started building in the '70s (especially since the F-15A through D models were improperly manufactured: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#S...)

And I see no signs the establishment GOP is truly interested in cutting "medicare/Medicaid/welfare", however much they might talk about cutting the latter two. Heck, they can't even bring themselves to terminate with extreme prejudice the National Endowment for the Arts.

Re: Defending the One Percent

#27

Post by arithma » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:18 PM UTC

Inequality of opportunity is a much bigger problem than inequality of, say, income. An ideal community is a place where every individual's contributions are enabled to the maximum. Capitalistic economies start out that way for a while, and then lock in opportunities to the people who need them the least. Guarantee education, and basic livelihood and the community reaps the benefits.

Re: Defending the One Percent

#28

Post by CaptainZapp » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:25 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #26

bargl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note that they (republicans) tend to want to cut taxes but not services, because they can't compromise and cut both the military and medicare/Medicaid/welfare/etc. They just want to cut the latter. The lack of compromise leads to neither happening so many republicans really don't want smaller govt. Some do, don't get me wrong. But many don't.

Actually, Republicans can be quite willing to cut the military, remember Dwight "military-industrial complex" Eisenhower, under who it was cut after the Korean War wound down, and you could make a case that the current sequester is cutting the budget. It's very very hard to analyze, because you have to factor in wars, especially ones we did not exactly choose to fight (e.g. Korean), and weapons procurement. E.g. howe…

I'd argue that this was a very, very different brand of republicans you had then compared to the current breed, which seems to lack any rationality, whatsoever.

Re: Defending the One Percent

#29

Post by klahnakoski2 » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:26 PM UTC

I could not finish reading this. The paper started with examples of entrepreneurial success that depend heavily upon government regulation; namely the artificial scarcity generated from copyright and patents.

Also the statement "These high earners have made significant economic contributions...", which is an axiom I am not willing to accept without some convincing argument.

I found it impossible to read a paper that started dense with immature postulations and grandiose assumptions. The author should have been aware of the political climate of such a paper and attempted some care of his argument: At the very least admit to the reader that he's making ridiculous assumptions, but the argument will reveal itself with more reading.

Re: Defending the One Percent

#30

Post by JamesBarney » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:27 PM UTC

This article seems to argue "Taxing the rich leads to reduced growth and therefore all of society is worse off for it." That every extra $1 the rich makes leads to a economy wide increase in $1.10. If this were true we would want to reduce taxation levels of the rich considerably. And we would expect inequality to be associated with very strong growth.

Luckily we don't have to just speculate. The IMF has done in-depth research on this topic. And they found found that not only is growth not associated with inequality, but there is evidence inequality actually leads to lower growth rates.[0]

[0]https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2014/sdn1402.pdf