posted
I like Amanecer's point- though I am not sure I agree with how far money can go, but I am thinking in terms of family of four budgeting not individuals. To that end, economists are constantly pointing out that you give a $1 to poor people, it pretty much goes 100% back into the system, encouraging economic growth. The same $1 to a rich guy goes into a bank and so no increased shopping, no increased demands to service industry, etc. It does not help stimulate the economy.
There also are some economic studies that show when the poor get richer, everyone's wealth increases. When the rich get richer, there is a very, very slight increase to poor, but not nearly as significant- and I believe in the poor rising case, the rich ended up rising more than when the money was fed directly into the poor.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
Lots of conservatives point out how loop-hole-u-lar our tax system is, and then make the leap that we should just jump to a flat income tax. This ignores not only the fact that a "flat" tax disproportionately taxes poor people, but that the simplification doesn't come from reverting to a "flat tax" at all, but rather from getting rid of deductions and other intricacies of the tax system. Which would work just as well if you got rid of them but kept the progressive tax.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:To that end, economists are constantly pointing out that you give a $1 to poor people, it pretty much goes 100% back into the system, encouraging economic growth.
I doubt very much that you can find an economist who points this out, because it is a classic populist fallacy and a distortion of what Keynesian theory actually says. Consumption does not increase the size of the economy. Investment increases the size of the economy. The one exception to this is when you have a large amount of unused resources, as in a recession; and even then you are not likely to get the optimal use out of a gifted dollar. In ordinary non-recession circumstances, you can not increase the economy's size by moving IOUs around.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I suggest that in a discussion about redistribution and what should be done as a general principle, points about stimulus in case of recession should be explicitly marked as such lest they cause confusion.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: I don't understand this Robin Hood complex. Almost 50% of households in the US do not pay Federal Income Taxes. The top 25% of wage earners in the US pay 85% of the Federal Income taxes. The bottom 50% of wage earners pay 3%.
These numbers are meaningless on their own. If the top 25% of earners earn more than 85% of the total wages, then at 85% of the total tax collected they'd be paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes than everyone else. Without that information the "25% pay 85%" is just a catchy but empty soundbite.
So according to your link the earners of 68.7% of the nation's income paid 86.6% of the taxes. Doesn't sound quite as shocking that way, does it?
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Yet I still find it disturbing that the top 1% of the nation represents 22.8% of the income, even knowing they pay 40% of the taxes.
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Do you believe that having no restrictions on accumulations of capital other than the market itself a problem?
Do you believe that the government of the USA spends your money in a proper and fair manner?
At what point do you say enough is enough to handouts and bailouts? Give me a value. How long should unemployment benefits be given? How long should someone stay on welfare roles? How long before you would consider these benefits a dependence instead of a helping hand?
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
Lets clarify a few points about what I was saying.
1) I do not propose going to the homes of the rich and pulling out all their good china and giving it to the poor. I propose ending the slimy and greedy practices of a few who have wealth and power on their side.
One example recently slightly adjusted was the minimum wage. It had stayed the same for 20+ years while the wages of the CEO's doubled almost yearly. When they give away the salaries of 100 employees to pay for the golden parachute of the CEO who ran the company into the ground in order to make the stock look valuable, then that is wrong and needs to be stopped.
When the head of a bank gets more in bonuses than the entire yearly salary of 50 of the bank employees he fired because of hard times, I don't see how that is helping the economy, the middle class or the poor.
2) When I said Paris Hilton was undeserving of her millions, I was referring to her before she was discovered creating her first productive service--that entertaining video. There are a lot of people like her. They walk around after inheriting more than the average middle-class person could earn in ten life-times, and they seem to believe that they earned this money because...well...because they some how earned the right parents.
Everyone talks about earning their wealth and I am all for earned wealth. Warren Buffet is a fine man who earned his wealth. Sam Walton earned his wealth. But why is my hard work a laughing matter by people who were born into a Harvard degree?
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
The minimum wage is a terrible way to redistribute wealth. If you want people who can't find a job paying more money to have more money, use a reverse income tax to give them more money from the broad tax base (the position I support).
Increasing the minimum wage is, in good times, either an approximately zero impact or negative impact move, overall, when you take into account the increased welfare of people who get more money and the decreased welfare of the people who lose jobs. What's more, the current high minimum wage seems to have priced quite a few people out of jobs in the current situation (the data seems to be that low wage jobs, especially minimum wage jobs, except for temp work, are seeing the least hiring, while temp work is seeing much more extensive use -- all signs that the work of an ongoing low wage worker doesn't generate the income required to sustain that worker's position). If businesses were able to pay workers amounts concurrent with the value they generated, businesses would be able to hire many more people. The wages would be low, but that's where the reverse income tax comes in -- just like a minimum wage, it would ensure people had enough income to live, only more consistently, and with fewer negative side effects.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
"Do you believe that having no restrictions on accumulations of capital other than the market itself a problem? "
Yes. The market freaking SUCKS. I do not believe that an unregulated, or moderately regulated market, is better for the population as a whole than a heavily regulated market.
"Do you believe that the government of the USA spends your money in a proper and fair manner?"
I believe that the government of the USA spends far too much money helping people with a lot of money hold onto it, and not NEARLY enough money helping people move up the economic ladder.
"At what point do you say enough is enough to handouts and bailouts? Give me a value. How long should unemployment benefits be given? How long should someone stay on welfare roles? How long before you would consider these benefits a dependence instead of a helping hand?"
Handouts and bailouts should be stopped when they stop helping. We haven't gotten close to the point where the money we are spending on handouts and bailouts is more than the money we get back from those handouts and bailouts.
Instead of unemployment benefits over a period of weeks or months, I think we should give people moderate to large lump sums. On the order of 50-100k dollars.
Welfare assisstance should be given to anyone who needs it, and is using the assistance productively.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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The entire structure of our economic regulatory system is pretty well designed to make sure that people with money have an easy time holding onto it, while making it extremely hard to accumulate wealth without a good baseline. Our over-seas military ventures do almost nothing for us other than protect the economic interests of some of our wealthiest corporations. Our environmental regulations are so freaking weak because it is against corporate interests. We have mammoth subsidies for large corporations that simply do not exist for smaller businesses. And the list goes on and on. The tax code is pretty much designed so that if you have a lot of money you can pay far less in taxes than you should, based on the strict percentages. And the list goes on...
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote: Our over-seas military ventures do almost nothing for us other than protect the economic interests of some of our wealthiest corporations.
Yes, that involves spending a lot of money.
quote:Our environmental regulations are so freaking weak because it is against corporate interests.
That does not.
quote:We have mammoth subsidies for large corporations that simply do not exist for smaller businesses.
Some of these subsidies involve spending lots of money, while others give companies tax breaks. (Not collecting taxes from somebody is not spending money.)
quote:The tax code is pretty much designed so that if you have a lot of money you can pay far less in taxes than you should, based on the strict percentages.
This does not involve the government spending a lot of money.
quote: Our over-seas military ventures do almost nothing for us other than protect the economic interests of some of our wealthiest corporations.
Yes, that involves spending a lot of money.
quote:Our environmental regulations are so freaking weak because it is against corporate interests.
That does not.
quote:We have mammoth subsidies for large corporations that simply do not exist for smaller businesses.
Some of these subsidies involve spending lots of money, while others give companies tax breaks. (Not collecting taxes from somebody is not spending money.)
quote:The tax code is pretty much designed so that if you have a lot of money you can pay far less in taxes than you should, based on the strict percentages.
This does not involve the government spending a lot of money.
To some people, everything we own basically belongs to society, as represented by the government. To the extent that the government allows us to keep money, it is in effect spending that money on us. So tax cuts and even tax refunds are really like grants which are being paid for by society.
Of course, that's inhuman, but the view exists.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
If you were to remove government from the equation, the concept of money would not exist, and the concept of property would be defined as "if you are strong enough to keep it, it's yours." The notion that we have an intrinsic right to property (that we can expect to not have stolen) is not an inherent, obvious truth, and certainly not one that can exist without some form of government's authority to back it up.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "Do you believe that having no restrictions on accumulations of capital other than the market itself a problem? "
Yes. The market freaking SUCKS. I do not believe that an unregulated, or moderately regulated market, is better for the population as a whole than a heavily regulated market.
So you are a self admitted Marxist then?
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: If you were to remove government from the equation, the concept of money would not exist, and the concept of property would be defined as "if you are strong enough to keep it, it's yours." The notion that we have an intrinsic right to property (that we can expect to not have stolen) is not an inherent, obvious truth, and certainly not one that can exist without some form of government's authority to back it up.
Who told you that? What an odd thing to say.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I don't know if I heard it from anywhere in particular. I'm not sure if I came up with it on my own, but it seems like a pretty obvious extrapolation from other things I know to be true.
Money as a concept only exists when people collectively agree that it exists (again, I define people collectively agreeing to things as government, not sure if this is a semantic point on which we disagree. If you do have a different definition of government that you feel is important to distinguish, let me know).
Property that we have a right to beyond our ability to protect it ourselves only exists when people collectively agree to help each other protect it.
You can strip away a lot of other extraneous parts of government and still get to those two places pretty easily, but the bottom line is that "rights" are meaningless without collective agreement to enforce them. And there's no rule woven into the universe that people must collectively agree to any particular set of rights. But you CAN objectively observe which collective agreements lead to more suffering.
I think it is valuable to agree that people have the right to acquire property, to some extent. I do not think it is necessarily valuable to assume that this right should be extended infinitely.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "Do you believe that having no restrictions on accumulations of capital other than the market itself a problem? "
Yes. The market freaking SUCKS. I do not believe that an unregulated, or moderately regulated market, is better for the population as a whole than a heavily regulated market.
So you are a self admitted Marxist then?
Geraine, What do you think it means to be a Marxist?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "Do you believe that having no restrictions on accumulations of capital other than the market itself a problem? "
Yes. The market freaking SUCKS. I do not believe that an unregulated, or moderately regulated market, is better for the population as a whole than a heavily regulated market.
So you are a self admitted Marxist then?
I've been reading comments like this more and more often and I'm ... well, entertained that since 'socialist' is kind of losing its bite as a pejorative label, we're making the jump to calling people 'Marxists.' With or without actually really understanding what a Marxist is.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: Money as a concept only exists when people collectively agree that it exists (again, I define people collectively agreeing to things as government, not sure if this is a semantic point on which we disagree. If you do have a different definition of government that you feel is important to distinguish, let me know).
You're probably aware of this, but just in case you're not, you might find it helpful to know that Lisa thinks her rights are written into the physical structure of the universe, and exist whether they're enforced or not. I would not be entirely surprised if she thinks the act of, say, picking up a rock and making a tool from it has the additional effect of adding a little XML tag to each atom of the rock, saying <owner>Lisa</owner>.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I actually thought her last response was rather interesting (insofar as, rather than "that's wrong", she seemed more like "that's weird"). I was interested in seeing where the discussion went from there.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
As a side note: if all objects had an atomic schema of well-formed XML, my job would be so much easier.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:The PEA Party is not anti-wealth. We are anti-greed, anti-slime, and anti-idiot.
And, apparently, pro-empty platitude. Might as well say 'the PEA party is pro-good, pro-right, and pro-pony'
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Well, the question I posed was a quote by Marx, so yes, I would say Marxist. I don't think it is that big of a jump.
But that is fine. Disregard it. Let me ask a more direct question.
Do you want the US to change from a Capitalist society to a Socialist society?
I saw a quote somewhere that said "When you implement 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,' magically, everyone starts having quite a lot of need and very little ability.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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quote:Do you want the US to change from a Capitalist society to a Socialist society?
What do you mean 'society?' What does a society have to be to classify as a 'socialist society' versus a 'capitalist society?'
I'm going to guess that the artificial separation of these social concepts is 'in a capitalist society, society is <insert positive, individualistic concepts here> and in a socialist society is <insert negative, parasitic concepts here>'
But for what it's worth, if we apply the words in their nominal definition, the united states has both 'societies' interwoven into it.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Samprimary, thats not what I am trying to do. Both socialist and capitalist societies or systems have positive and negative aspects. I am not saying that a free market system is perfect in any way. It is my personal opinion that it works better than a socialist system, but not perfectly.
I simply feel that there is more opportunity for prosperity and in a free market system than a socialist one.
I'm not saying socialism can't work because it can. The thing that gets in the way of it is the people. People have a strong desire to look out for themselves and their own self interests. As long as people are selfish, socialism can't work.
I may be looking at this from the wrong point of view. If you feel I am, please enlighten me. I come here to learn Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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Your mistake is in thinking that these two are binary alternatives. There is a whole continuum. Someone is suggesting that the saturation be increased from 0.425 to 0.426 (on a scale from 0 to 1), and you immediately respond "So you prefer black to white, then?"
As a side note, I would myself prefer that the saturation be tuned down to 0.35, but that's a completely separate point. To have an intelligent discussion at all, it's necessary first to recognise that we're not at the endpoints and we're never going to be. The Soviet Union under Stalin hit, maybe, 0.85.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I think the main thing is that the US already IS socialist, so the point of your question is rather unclear. We could become more (or less) socialist, but that's still a bad question, since there are a thousand individual ways to implement specific socialist ideas, and each of those ideas can be good or bad for various reasons.
Socialism does not equal communism. Communism (as implemented by the soviets anyway) did suffer from self-centered-ness. But a lot of the things that are wrong with communism (decisions made by distant bureaucracies that don't know what's good for local areas, people feeling that the amount of work they do is unrelated to their payment and therefore not working hard) are just as present in modern US corporations. (I learned why soviet communism failed largely from working at the A&P supermarket, where I got to see everything I had learned in history/economics class firsthand).
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: I'm not saying socialism can't work because it can. The thing that gets in the way of it is the people. People have a strong desire to look out for themselves and their own self interests. As long as people are selfish, socialism can't work.
quote:Samprimary, thats not what I am trying to do. Both socialist and capitalist societies or systems have positive and negative aspects.
er, that's a nice disclaimer, followed pretty rigidly with a "socialism can't work" -
quote:I'm not saying socialism can't work because it can. The thing that gets in the way of it is the people. People have a strong desire to look out for themselves and their own self interests. As long as people are selfish, socialism can't work.
But that's all a digression. What I'm interested in and asked about was what does a society have to be to classify as a 'socialist society' versus a 'capitalist society?'
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Throw out the labels, it just distracts everyone into engaging in arguments over definitions. I'll put my worldview into very simple terms.
1. Anything which gives someone else any level of control over my own life is wrong, even if that person was benevolent and it made my life easier.
2. Anything that increases my freedom to choose my life is good, even if that makes my life harder.
Too many people in this world think it is their right to be happy. They point to the Declaration and and say it gives them the right to be happy. They do NOT have a right to be happy, they have the right to "the pursuit of Happiness." There is a difference.
Anything which is given to me for no effort on my own holds very little value to me.
Anything I have earned through my own labors holds enormous value to me.
So at the end of the day, all I ask to be given is my freedom. The freedom to choose how I will live, the freedom to succeed, the freedom to fail. The only limit I want placed on myself is to have those same freedoms extended to everyone else so that neither I nor anyone else can take that from them. All else is dross.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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quote:Anything which gives someone else any level of control over my own life is wrong
Do you believe it's OK for an individual or group of individuals to voluntarily exchange some level of freedom for compensation?
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Wingracer: Anything which is given to me for no effort on my own holds very little value to me.
So, your life, your care and nurture as a child, the love of your parents . . . all of very little value?
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Wingracer: 1. Anything which gives someone else any level of control over my own life is wrong, even if that person was benevolent and it made my life easier.
If you grant me the same inclusion into your axiom, then I can say I can shoot you and steal everything in your house, and anything that gives 'someone else any level of control over my own life' (say, putting me in jail for doing such a thing) is wrong.
This is so morally indefensible to the absolute that it would even send zealotic adherents of the non-aggression principle running for the hills.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I think the main thing is that the US already IS socialist,
Actually, we're a particular kind of socialist. See, socialism has public ownership of the means of production. The term for private ownership of the means of production along with public control of the means of production is "fascism". The real thing; not the word that everyone throws at anyone they don't like. There's another term for it, actually, but I'd be accused of violating Godwin's Law if I were to mention it, even though I'm not referring to the bloodthirsty policies that went with it in German.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: You fail to realize that you have already been given much more than most people.
No, I realize that just fine thank you and wish to extend that freedom to others.
Why is it that whenever someone has more than someone else, the answer is always to take the excess away from that person, rather than have the less fortunate attain more?
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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posted
Strictly speaking, the difference would be in who controls production. If production is controlled privately, I'd consider that capitalist. If it is controlled by the community, I would consider that socialist.
Let me put it this way. Socialism can work as long as it is implemented from the bottom up, not the top down. It can work but it is a very difficult system to sustain. It can be sustained only as long as people feel they are being treated fairly.
The LDS church actually practiced a form of socialism in the early days of the church called the United Order.
Though private property still existed, you would "consecrate" all of your money and goods that you received to the church. You would then be given a "stewardship" based on your wants and needs for your family.
quote: If you grant me the same inclusion into your axiom, then I can say I can shoot you and steal everything in your house, and anything that gives 'someone else any level of control over my own life' (say, putting me in jail for doing such a thing) is wrong.
This doesn't hold, simply because you took control from someone else in the first place.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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quote:Anything which gives someone else any level of control over my own life is wrong
Do you believe it's OK for an individual or group of individuals to voluntarily exchange some level of freedom for compensation?
Seriously? Is this going to be another one of those "You implicitly agree, and if you don't, you can always leave" arguments? Because no, we really can't. There's only one country on earth that was founded on the principles of individual freedom, and to change that and say, "Sorry, try somewhere else" is a very unfunny joke.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Wingracer: 1. Anything which gives someone else any level of control over my own life is wrong, even if that person was benevolent and it made my life easier.
If you grant me the same inclusion into your axiom, then I can say I can shoot you and steal everything in your house, and anything that gives 'someone else any level of control over my own life' (say, putting me in jail for doing such a thing) is wrong.
This is so morally indefensible to the absolute that it would even send zealotic adherents of the non-aggression principle running for the hills.
You completely failed to notice the conclusion so I write it here again:
The only limit I want placed on myself is to have those same freedoms extended to everyone else so that neither I nor anyone else can take that from them.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: Do you believe it's OK for an individual or group of individuals to voluntarily exchange some level of freedom for compensation?
Only if it was unanimous and only affected them. They have the right to decide that for themselves but not for me.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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quote:They have the right to decide that for themselves but not for me.
How do you handle something like a national military then? Should it not exist if unanimous consent isn't behind it? Or should the funding for such a service be entirely voluntary?
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote:They have the right to decide that for themselves but not for me.
How do you handle something like a national military then? Should it not exist if unanimous consent isn't behind it? Or should the funding for such a service be entirely voluntary?
The military; if used correctly, exists to protect my freedom and that of others. It is therefore a benefit to all and should be funded by all.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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