131–140 of 148 posts
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You misinterpreted it: It meant I (and others) aren't here to take your tests nor are interested in your grades.
If that's what you think is happening – tests and grades – when people come to a site whose purpose is to foster thoughtful and substantive discussions, and then on that site they share ideas and invite criticism of them, you might consider whether you're missing something.
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Very interesting perspective. Let me try and repeat it back. Resource allocation is a zero-sum game within any given year, resource production increases yearly as technology increases, technology increases more as capital increases, so a low capital gains tax will increase resource production more than a high capital gains tax. If I got that right, here's my best shot at a contradiction. If resource allocation is a z…
First, thanks for continuing this interesting conversation! > Let me try and repeat it back. Resource allocation is a zero-sum game within any given year, resource production increases yearly as technology increases, technology increases more as capital increases, so a low capital gains tax will increase resource production more than a high capital gains tax. Actually, this line of reasoning is tangential to the thru…
Cheers!
>Money does not determine resource allocation. But spending money does!
Very good point. Investors have some say as to where the money goes, but you're right. Often said that the economy runs on debt.
>They spend only a tiny fraction of it – and invest the rest.
Well said. I suppose their wealth only represents a potential for resource allocation.
>If we forced them to spend that wealth, much of the economy’s resources would be redirected to provide goods and services to the top 1% of people.
Under most theories of value, this extreme demand and labor would cause the price of such luxury goods and services to skyrocket! The money would quickly distribute to the hands of those who provided such goods. Then the masses can spend the money.
I now see our discussion as a classic debate of supply-side vs demand-side economics. I'll steal "the unity of means and ends" from the anarchists for this: I fully believe that the masses must have the resource allocation potential in order to achieve greater wealth for all. That exists in a positive feedback loop with businesses, increasing technology and production, and increasing the general standard of living. But, investing gives the resource allocation power to the businesses. With enough wealth and power, large businesses can keep the investment cycle flowing between businesses and owners, underpaying the workers and buying out competitors. At the most extreme result, a vertically closed system where the workers must meet the needs of the business (company towns).
>These are not easily adapted to produce things that regular people need.
So many goods start out as expensive luxury goods. Refrigeration, commercial airlines, air conditioning, computers, HDTVs, cell phones...
>When a small number of people can, in effect, buy the government with pocket change, that’s not good.
Then they morph government policy towards further enriching themselves, hurting the masses in the process. Very bad!
Would you advocate for a 0% capital gains tax? Or a capital gains tax-break? How would you calculate the ideal number? (I would place capital gains tax included in income tax.)
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> Can you offer a substantive argument that getting the wealthy to invest their wealth instead of spending it on themselves is a policy that benefits only the wealthy and makes life worse for everyone else? Not gp, but if the investment is made in either a non-productive asset, or in the secondary market toi buy share in a company that is downsizing/stabilizing their investments (share buyback is very often a good te…
> Not gp, but if the investment is made in either a non-productive asset, or in the secondary market toi buy share in a company that is downsizing/stabilizing their investments..., then the wealth does not benefit society in general but either inflate a bubble, or separate the owning class from the working class. That if is doing a lot of lifting. What percentage of investments do you believe satisfy that if conditio…
While a worker is beneficial to society 100% of the time.
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What are the incentives for corrupt people to fix potholes under a purely capitalist economy? No one's making any money from that. But it causes damages to everyone. You need some kind of government for such things as education, healthcare, roads... fixing potholes ...
> What are the incentives for corrupt people to fix potholes under a purely capitalist economy? Well, in a purely capitalist economy, the answer would be property rights, competition, and liability. For example, a road would be owned by someone, and you could sue that someone for damages if the road damaged your car. A road owner could discharge liability risk by purchacing insurance, and insurance underwriters could…
> This resulted in eliminating funding to the county's senior-citizens council, town offices going unheated during the winter, poorly maintained roads filled with potholes, and the Grafton Police Department being reduced to one officer (the police chief), who said he was unable to answer calls for service as the town had no money to repair the one police vehicle left. Other issues were inconsistent basic public services, such as trash collection.
Most roads are unprofitable individually, but still beneficial to the greater economy. It's very unrealistic to expect private individuals to build and maintain them. And the logistics of paying for every street one drives one, and the profiteering this enables sounds hellish.
There was a time when the government was able to build and fix stuff. We should probably get to fixing that, by kicking out the parasitic contracters, actually hiring competent civil servants at competitive wages, taxing the ever-increasing wealth of the top 1%, etc. Not by privatizing roads, which is a nonsensical idea that failed miserably anytime it was tried.
The golden age of America (and the West) happened when redistributive taxation was maximal and the government had the means and the will to improve citizens life. We've been privatizing stuff ever since the 1980s with arguably disastrous results. It's time we came back to first base.
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> Potholes are a visible manifestation of society saying it's more efficient to prioritize capital than care. How though. Roads are a public good and fixing them should come from the governments pocket. How can you say the problem is private industry, when the government is doing such a good job collecting our tax money. You should be asking where is that money going. And then you will see its because of mismanagemen…
The tax rates in the US are low; that's why there is so much debt and so few services. Anti-tax groups have long followed the 'Starve the Beast' strategy (and their opponents are completely incompetent and fall for it every time): 1) Cut taxes 2) Point out the resulting deficit, say we're spending too much, and cut services 3) Repeat Now we're at point 2. It's not spending, it's lack of revenue. Some large corporatio…
I was kinda shocked, when working in South Africa, to find that the roads and sidewalks there were often in much better shape than ones I'd seen in the US. And from the other side, the only place I've ever seen roads as patched and potholed as ones in US cities was in rural Russia.
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But socialist culture leads to corruption repeatetly in all socities where the experiment is run ?
It's almost as if government corruption is not a byproduct of the system of government, but a byproduct of the fact that it's filled with people, and when people accrue power they will, by and large, abuse it.
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> What are the incentives for corrupt people to fix potholes under a purely capitalist economy? Well, in a purely capitalist economy, the answer would be property rights, competition, and liability. For example, a road would be owned by someone, and you could sue that someone for damages if the road damaged your car. A road owner could discharge liability risk by purchacing insurance, and insurance underwriters could…
Some libertarians moved in the small town of Grafton, NH [0], with the explicit goal of turning it into a "Free Town". > This resulted in eliminating funding to the county's senior-citizens council, town offices going unheated during the winter, poorly maintained roads filled with potholes, and the Grafton Police Department being reduced to one officer (the police chief), who said he was unable to answer calls for se…
> actually hiring competent civil servants at competitive wages
I think most people would be open to increasing cash government salaries if the rest of the job also matched the broader economy - at-will employment, no public sector unions, etc. You trade some of your cash compensation in the government for the cushy benefits, sub-40 hour work week and lots of time off, and the near impossibility of being fired especially once you've been there for a few decades.
The golden age of the West happened due to a war-time manufacturing boom that would put the industrial revolution to shame. If you're making a ton of money and your marginal tax rate is 90%, what incentive do you have to work another ten hours a week or open another factor or release a new product if you're only keeping 10% of what you earn?
It was also turned into a short documentary series. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgBne2KTlDUzDQasv65PtT9Lq...
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Or we’ve invested far too much money in building a road network and the economic value from it either isn’t captured to sustain it OR it’s insufficient to cover costs and it’s being subsidized. Potholes being a “need” to be fixed is an interesting take when we had cobble streets and people survived fine. Pretending like capitalism is the thing that creates economic tradeoffs is incorrect and it’s just scapegoating ca…
> Potholes being a “need” to be fixed is an interesting take when we had cobble streets and people survived fine. Have you ever driven on a cobblestone street? There are a few in the city where I grew up and it's pretty obvious why we don't build that way anymore. It's like driving on an uneven dirt road, you're lucky to get above 25MPH consistently lest you want to risk damaging your car.
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First, thanks for continuing this interesting conversation! > Let me try and repeat it back. Resource allocation is a zero-sum game within any given year, resource production increases yearly as technology increases, technology increases more as capital increases, so a low capital gains tax will increase resource production more than a high capital gains tax. Actually, this line of reasoning is tangential to the thru…
>thanks for continuing this interesting conversation! Cheers! >Money does not determine resource allocation. But spending money does! Very good point. Investors have some say as to where the money goes, but you're right. Often said that the economy runs on debt. >They spend only a tiny fraction of it – and invest the rest. Well said. I suppose their wealth only represents a potential for resource allocation. >If we f…
I wouldn't advocate for any particular tax rate for capital gains without it being part of comprehensive fiscal and government reform. The point I was trying to get across in my original comment was that, when people talk about raising the capital gains tax because they think it's an obvious way to tax the rich without affecting working people and that the only reason we're not already doing it is because the rich have rigged the system, the reality is way more complicated. There are no easy fixes. Changing the capital gains tax substantially (outside of more widespread reforms) is likely to have unwanted consequences. And even with widespread reforms, we're likely to suffer unwanted consequences.
Reality is way more complex than talking points.