As I said, the people are the power behind the legal system. You can substitute any subset of people you want for that if you don’t have a system where the government rules with the consent of the people.
I don’t think a moral right is the same kind of right as a legal right, but if it is then there is no right to own land as far as I’m concerned. That is immoral. In some cases though it’s a practical sacrifice.
Not only have I do I not advocate a gold standard (I have no idea whatsoever how you think that or how that came up. NEVER have I said a positive word for the gold standard), I have been strongly in the market monetarist camp for a like a decade.
Well that’s good. I don’t know you at all so I was going off of other people’s posts. You’re still an idiot for thinking that having a capital gains rate that is at all lower than regular income tax rates is a good thing. Just totally irredeemable. Not as bad as the gold standard but still trash. Sorry.
I actually support having it be the capital gains same rate as ordinary income which should be a flat rate.
Even then there is a very good argument to eliminate the capital gains tax (HK and Singapore) and I tend to favor all tax cuts so I did use it praise Clinton, even if I it wouldn’t be my preferred policy.
Lol a flat tax is just as wtfstupid. So is doing anything but pushing the top tax rate up well north of 50%. Thanks for playing.
Never said it. Though it is a highly debatable topic. Not even remotely close to rent control. I am for a flat tax with no loopholes and a capital gains and corporate rate the same rate.
A lower capital gains tax is at least theoretically justifiable. If you believe production drives the economy over the long run (see Ray Dalio machine video) and investment drives production and a tax is a disincentive, then eliminating the capital gains tax or lowering should be a good thing over the long run.
Ray Dalio doesn’t think that, and doesn’t believe in a flat tax. Please don’t misrepresent what my actual heroes think about economics.
I’m sorry man but a flat tax is just obviously wrong at a really deep level, particularly in the US where the majority of federal government expenditures have something between 0 utility and negative utility for the median household… and are massively massively beneficial to people at the top.
Almost none of those preferred left wing countries (Canada, Australia) outside of Scandavia have tax rates well north of 50. Keynes said you couldn’t tax a countries income much more than 25%. The US is well over that now.
Everyone likes to cite Piketty but he provides no evidence (and does not try) that higher rates have any positive effect other than reduce the wealth of rich people, which I guess is supposed to reduce power and be good or something. But no economic argument whatsoever from him
A left wing economist James Mirrlees won a Nobel Prize in part on the subject of tax rates and income inequality determined a 20% flat tax was optimal. You can disagree but you have no business being smug when numerous Nobel Prize winners support a low flat rate.
"Mirrlees started with no presumption against high marginal tax rates. Indeed, he has been an adviser to Britain’s Labour Party, which for decades imposed marginal tax rates in excess of 80 percent. But Mirrlees found that the top marginal tax rate should be only about 20 percent; and moreover, it should be about the same 20 percent for everyone. In short, Mirrlees’s work justified what is now known as a “flat tax,” more appropriately called a “flat tax rate.”
Mirrlees wrote, “I must confess that I had expected the rigourous analysis of income taxation in the utilitarian manner to provide arguments for high tax rates. It has not done so.”[1]( James A. Mirrlees - Econlib
Ray Dalio does think production drives the economy over the long run. Nice picture at a little over a minute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0 Apology accepted.
I never said he advocated a flat tax. I do though. As do numerous people who have won a Nobel Prize in economics. Do you have a Nobel Prize? If not, be less smug. It isn’t a settled issue like rent control
Not getting a whole lot of smugness from boredsocial here. Lot of contempt tho.
You’re talking about countries with VAT taxes north of 20%, robust social services, AND progressive income tax systems that cap out north of 20%. They have total tax revenues as a share of GDP much higher than the US. Much more progressive too… and you’re here telling me that they are good arguments for a flat tax. Contempt would be my natural reaction to that yeah.
The same kind of contempt I’ve got for ridiculous stuff like rent control.
In no world would taking 20% of the income of people in the bottom 60% of the United States be anything like good policy. You’d raise very little money and cause an ungodly amount of suffering.
Ray Dalio thinks productivity gains have to be greater than interest rates to avoid a credit crisis in the long run. He also thinks that modern capitalism is super broken and in need of massive reform before it collapses and does an enormous amount of harm.
He’s also the author of what I consider to be the best examination of the realities of income inequality today. Our Biggest Economic, Social, and Political Issue
That thing for sure isn’t calling for raising taxes on the bottom 60% and lowering them on the top 40%.
Income here as a whole isn’t taxed anywhere near 25 percent through the income tax. It certainly isn’t “far north of that”.
Most (all?) flat tax proposals (Steve Forbes, Rand Paul’s, Laffer’s proposals) have an exemption so that no one in the bottom 60% would pay any income tax. Have seen as high as 35k and 50k. Most combine with sales tax or VAT.
So it’s not really a flat tax it’s just even more reduced tax burdens for the very wealthy you’re for. I guess it goes without saying you’re for completely obliterating any form of social services huh?
We might agree about the ridiculousness of our nations military spending… I suspect that’s about it.
The only scenario where I’d ever be OK with something as regressive as a VAT tax would be if 100% of the money was redistributed as a UBI.
I never said npc believed in the gold standard. I said it was something that may have less support among economists than rent control.
Dude basically nothing has less support among economists than rent control. Nobody ITT is off that particular hook. It’s a dumb hook to hang yourself on.
I honestly don’t think a lot of the people itt actually support rent control. They support policy that makes it easier for low income renters to find shelter. Rent control is used as the generic term for this. I bet they would support tax credits and subsidies to builders the same.
Here is a 2012 survey in which 2% of economists agreed that rent control had a positive impact in NY/SF. Here is 0% saying that the gold standard would be better for the average American.
That’s why my reaction to believing he was for the gold standard was so over the top. The gold standard is well and truly dead no matter what the stupid people who are for it would have you believe. FFS the guy who killed it once and for all was a Republican.
I’d like to know who the 2% are so that I can troll them on twitter.