Socialism/Marxism and balance.

[Seth]

Of course they do (well, they have here in Australia). That's how we escaped the GFC without even going into recession. The government pump primed the economy with a big investment in infrastructure, and also handing out cash to poorer Australians. The government can also affect demand through subsidising or penalising various things. And quite simply, if the government taxed the rich 1% more and gave all that to poor people, that would instantly create 1% of shitloads worth of demand. (minus whatever part of that 1% that said rich people would have spent in the local economy with that surplus money).

Nonsense. One dollar comes out of the rich man's pocked and into the government's bank account, and maybe 50 cents of it actually gets to the poor person. The other 50 cents pays government bureaucrats and functionaries to supervise the transaction.

So? That's labour. All of a sudden you hate labour now??

And in any case, the calculus is the same. Those bureaucrats spend the money locally.

Yes, and it's still immoral. Neither the bureaucrat nor the welfare leech has any claim on the rich man's money. It's zero-sum because what the bureaucrats and welfare leeches spend it on is no different than what the rich man would spend it on: Goods and services in the marketplace. Neither government nor welfare leeches are wealth multipliers, they are at best simply substitutes for the original owner, who suffers because he has been divested of his money involuntarily.

A rich person spends their surplus money on importing luxuries (or exporting themselves for luxury getaways) and/or hiding it away in tax havens. Or wasting it in unproductive financial speculation.

More importantly, any demand created by a poor person having a rich person's money is offset completely by the LACK of demand from the rich person caused by the government taking his money.

Repeating the same wilfully ignorant point, post after post won't make it true. Rich people spend less of their money proportionately on the local economy and more on foreign economies and tax havens.

Prove it. As you try, keep in mind that the vast majority of welfare revenues are paid for by the ordinary person, not by "the rich," who comprise less than 10 percent of the population. If you took every dime that the top 10 percent have it would fund the government for about a month, and then that source of income would be gone entirely, substituted by the 50 percent of the population who pay only 3 percent of the revenue collected from income taxes in the US. And the economy collapses as a result.

In that respect, redistribution is at best a zero-sum transaction, and usually it's an egregious waste because much of it pays for useless bureaucracy. That's why giving a bum flying a sign on a street corner a dollar in cash is better than giving that dollar to a "charitable" organization, much less the government, which both waste a lot of that dollar that could be spent by the bum.

"Waste" in this lexicon is code for "I didn't get to spend it myself how I wanted to". But it's not wasted.

Exactly correct. You have never yet addressed the fundamental moral and ethical issue of why your desire to spend my money as you please is more important than my ability to spend my money as I please. Who the fuck gave you the power to tell me how I get to spend what I earned? Nobody, that's who.

It's recycled into the economy. Of course, too much bureaucracy is a waste, as the same job can be done with less people. But that's not what you are talking about here.

Oh yes it is.

Remember, government produces NOTHING, ever. It only consumes wealth from the economy.

You really need to study economics or something. For god's sake.

It's an economic fact.

[Seth]

I understand all that, but investment "loans" are supply side. An economy is driven by demand.

Wrong. I have money to lend, you need money. I lend you money in return for a profit in the form of interest. It's no different than if I have a widget that you need that you are willing to pay me for. In this case the product happens to be currency, but so what? It's a commodity just like any other.

When the money is loaned for investment purposes, it is used on the supply-side. When it is given (or loaned) to a poor person, then it is spent on the demand-side.

Nonsense. Money is a commodity. If you need money to build a factory you come to me and "buy" my money, which costs you more than the face value of the money you borrow. Your demand is met by my supply, just like any other transaction.

The question is: Why is the money being loaned?

To make a profit, just like any other commodity.

When it's an investment loan, it is being loaned to start or expand a business, say. THAT is supply side economics. An investor is expanding supply. The act of loaning money to each other all over the land isn't driving an economy, as absolutely nothing is being produced. It's not until that money is put back into the economy that it starts driving the economy. This is simple stuff.

Do you actually believe that rich people loan money to one another for no reason? Really? Incredible. I hadn't thought you this dense.

Nobody loans someone else money, and no one takes out a loan, without the expectation of profit. If I loan you money to build a factory it's because I want to make a profit from doing so. If you take out a loan from me to build a factory it's because you expect to make a much larger profit off of the factory than what it cost you to borrow the money.

Talk about your economic dunces, rEv you've take the prize with this stupid assertion. Think about it.

[piscator]

What we're discussing here is redistributive taxation that uses the authority and force of the government to take the property of one person, whom the government deems has too much property, and gives it to another whom the government deems does not have enough for no other reason than that the first person has more and the second person has less.
No one is forced to be an income earner, hence no one is forced to be a tax payer.

Pettifoggery. If nobody earned any income, there wouldn't be any income to be taxed and redistributionism would be pointless because there would be nothing to redistribute, which is the situation that the USSR found itself in, and that Venezuela is wallowing in right now.

That's only relative to the rest of the world. And since we're wallowing in coincidence, so wallows Midland, Tx, a veritable bustling beehive of hard work and entrepreneurial spirit just a year or two ago. Go figure. Smaller government much?

This melodramatic and hyperbolic "theft/enslavement" shtick you run fails when one considers how much easier it is to make money when one has money. People are not forced to riches, but they are forced to poverty. It's The Big Lie to attempt to invert that in rhetoric.

Wrong. People have little choice but to labor to earn money to support themselves and their families, except in a welfare state. But if some segment of the society doesn't labor and produce, there can be no welfare state because there is nothing to redistribute to the poor because EVERYONE IS POOR.

The Capitalist intolerance for any digression from dogma is duly noted. "Indeed, there must be Universal Capitalism or it weakens the Greater Good (Capitalism)!" -- Chairman Sethmao

Look at the bright side: Then you'll have a lot less government getting in your way!

Extortion is extortion.

Gravity is gravity.

And the wages of extortion should be the same as the wages of trying to defy gravity: A sudden and permanent cessation of motion caused by the effects of inertia.

Pay the cops or pay the mob or pay the cost to be the boss. That's your degrees of freedom. Learn that or be bitter. It's all the same in the end.

[pErvinalia]

Of course they do (well, they have here in Australia). That's how we escaped the GFC without even going into recession. The government pump primed the economy with a big investment in infrastructure, and also handing out cash to poorer Australians. The government can also affect demand through subsidising or penalising various things. And quite simply, if the government taxed the rich 1% more and gave all that to poor people, that would instantly create 1% of shitloads worth of demand. (minus whatever part of that 1% that said rich people would have spent in the local economy with that surplus money).

Nonsense. One dollar comes out of the rich man's pocked and into the government's bank account, and maybe 50 cents of it actually gets to the poor person. The other 50 cents pays government bureaucrats and functionaries to supervise the transaction.

So? That's labour. All of a sudden you hate labour now??

And in any case, the calculus is the same. Those bureaucrats spend the money locally.

Yes, and it's still immoral.

Goalpost move fallacy noted. Piscator and I weren't discussing the morality of it. We were discussing whether government can create demand. Which it can.

More importantly, any demand created by a poor person having a rich person's money is offset completely by the LACK of demand from the rich person caused by the government taking his money.

Repeating the same wilfully ignorant point, post after post won't make it true. Rich people spend less of their money proportionately on the local economy and more on foreign economies and tax havens.

Prove it.

I already have. Unless you don't believe there is nearly $20 trillion squirreled away in offshore tax havens, and don't believe that rich people drive Ferrari's and holiday in the Swiss Alps.

As you try, keep in mind that the vast majority of welfare revenues are paid for by the ordinary person, not by "the rich,"

Bullshit. Prove it.

who comprise less than 10 percent of the population.

The top 0.1% of Americans owns the same amount of wealth as the bottom 90%. Population number is irrelevant to who pays for welfare. It's the gross amounts that are relevant.

In that respect, redistribution is at best a zero-sum transaction, and usually it's an egregious waste because much of it pays for useless bureaucracy. That's why giving a bum flying a sign on a street corner a dollar in cash is better than giving that dollar to a "charitable" organization, much less the government, which both waste a lot of that dollar that could be spent by the bum.

"Waste" in this lexicon is code for "I didn't get to spend it myself how I wanted to". But it's not wasted.

Exactly correct. You have never yet addressed the fundamental moral and ethical issue of why your desire to spend my money as you please is more important than my ability to spend my money as I please.

I've addressed it ad infinitum. Just because you refuse to accept my reasoning is no excuse to lie. Oh, and goalpost shift fallacy noted. AGAIN.

It's recycled into the economy. Of course, too much bureaucracy is a waste, as the same job can be done with less people. But that's not what you are talking about here.

Oh yes it is.

No it's not, stop lying. You didn't discuss how there's too much bureaucracy. You only said that money earned by the bureaucracy is wasted. Good attempt at getting me to move the goalposts for you this time. Shame it failed.

Remember, government produces NOTHING, ever. It only consumes wealth from the economy.

You really need to study economics or something. For god's sake.

It's an economic fact.

Prove it. And while you're at it, prove you aren't a buffalo fucker. We all have faith that you are.

[pErvinalia]

Wrong. I have money to lend, you need money. I lend you money in return for a profit in the form of interest. It's no different than if I have a widget that you need that you are willing to pay me for. In this case the product happens to be currency, but so what? It's a commodity just like any other.

When the money is loaned for investment purposes, it is used on the supply-side. When it is given (or loaned) to a poor person, then it is spent on the demand-side.

Nonsense. Money is a commodity. If you need money to build a factory you come to me and "buy" my money, which costs you more than the face value of the money you borrow. Your demand is met by my supply, just like any other transaction.

The question is: Why is the money being loaned?

To make a profit, just like any other commodity.

Nice snippage. Don't be a disingenuous twat. The key point is whether it is being loaned for investment or purely for purchasing goods.

When it's an investment loan, it is being loaned to start or expand a business, say. THAT is supply side economics. An investor is expanding supply. The act of loaning money to each other all over the land isn't driving an economy, as absolutely nothing is being produced. It's not until that money is put back into the economy that it starts driving the economy. This is simple stuff.

Do you actually believe that rich people loan money to one another for no reason? Really? Incredible. I hadn't thought you this dense.

Nobody loans someone else money, and no one takes out a loan, without the expectation of profit. If I loan you money to build a factory it's because I want to make a profit from doing so. If you take out a loan from me to build a factory it's because you expect to make a much larger profit off of the factory than what it cost you to borrow the money.

Talk about your economic dunces, rEv you've take the prize with this stupid assertion. Think about it.

I don't know what you are on about. Your reply totally avoids my point. The point is, once again, when money is loaned for investment purposes, it enters into the economy on the supply side. When it is loaned (or redistributed) for purposes of purchasing stuff, then it enters the economy on the demand side. Perhaps if you could follow the thread of the debate, we wouldn't waste so much time with each other.

[piscator]

What moral justification is there for taking the property of one person by force and giving it to another, even if the purpose is purported to be beneficial to society as a whole?

If you didn't give it to an accountable representative government, you'd give it to some other gang of thugs, and get less back for it.

That's not a moral argument, it's a utilitarian one.

Moral arguments are non sequitur.

Extortion is extortion.

Gravity is gravity.

And the wages of extortion should be the same as the wages of trying to defy gravity: A sudden and permanent cessation of motion caused by the effects of inertia.

Revenge arguments are non sequitur.

[pErvinalia]

"Buffalo Fucking" fallacy noted.

[piscator]

Ching!

One needs to do more than merely assert the necessity of metaphysick.

[pErvinalia]

Sometimes I feel sorry that we treat Seth like such a joke. But then I remember he is only here to troll us and argue disingenuously.

[Seth]

Nice snippage. Don't be a disingenuous twat. The key point is whether it is being loaned for investment or purely for purchasing goods.

Nonsense. What the fuck do you think "investment" is? Money doesn't make more money by putting it in a safe somewhere. Borrowing money is for the purpose of acquiring goods or services and the cost of borrowing is added to the cost of the goods and services when considering the value involved. Loaning money is for the purpose of generating profits, exactly the same as if the money-lender were selling widgets. There is no difference at all. You just want there to be one so that you can spout your Marxist Dialectic propaganda against "rent-seeking."

Demand for money with which to purchase goods and services drives the supply of money to loan, just like demand for widgets drives production of a supply of widgets.

[pErvinalia]

It's amazing how you can wilfully ignore the things people write and just go strawmanning. Well done.

[Blind groper]

Actually Seth is correct that the rich do not pay such a big percentage of tax. The reason, though, is that they spend vast sums of money instead on tax lawyers and tax accountants to find ways to avoid paying tax. There is a non productive way rich people spend money. Millions each year to avoid paying their proportional share of tax!

Seth

You are very hung up on intangibles. 'Rights', and principles, and morality. IMHO those considerations are secondary at best. I look to tangible results. You say that coercion on wearing car seat helts is immoral, but it dropped the death toll by 10% in my country. A human life saved is tangible, not one of those airy fairy, wishy washy and useless intangibles.

[Seth]

Actually Seth is correct that the rich do not pay such a big percentage of tax. The reason, though, is that they spend vast sums of money instead on tax lawyers and tax accountants to find ways to avoid paying tax. There is a non productive way rich people spend money. Millions each year to avoid paying their proportional share of tax!

Rich people pay the tax they owe. That "proportional share" is set by the government, not by the taxpayers. Despite that fact the top 10 percent of taxpayers pay more than 70% of the tax revenue collected by the government. They do nothing illegal.

The rich do not pay the most taxes, they pay ALL the taxes
Jane Wells | @janewells
Wednesday, 11 Dec 2013 | 11:56 AM ETCNBC.com

Buried inside a Congressional Budget Office report this week was this nugget: when it comes to individual income taxes, the top 40 percent of wage earners in America pay 106 percent of the taxes. The bottom 40 percent...pay negative 9 percent.

You read that right. One group is paying more than 100 percent of individual income taxes, the other is paying less than zero.

It's right there in Table 3 on page 13 of the report. The numbers are based on 2010 IRS and Census Bureau figures.

(Read more: New budget deal will pass, says GOP congressman)

How does someone pay negative taxes? The CBO's formula offsets whatever taxes are paid with "refundable tax credits." Some of these are due to "government transfers" of money back to the taxpayer in the form of social security and food stamps.

That's not to say the rich are going broke. Hardly.

According to the CBO, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans saw before-tax income grow more than 16 percent from 2009 to 2010, which isn't such a surprise since the stock market was coming off the bottom. Most of the rest of the country only saw gross incomes grow about 1 percent. When it comes to federal taxes,the top bracket paid 69 percent of the total last year. The bottom bracket paid 0.4 percent.

"For most income groups, average federal tax rates in 2010 were near the lowest rates for the 1979-2010 period," reads the report. "The exception was households in the top 1 percent,whose average federal tax rate in 2010 was significantly above its low in the mid-1980s."

It does not look to be getting better. The CBO said that since 2010, new taxes have been added which will raise rates for everyone, with the biggest increase hitting the 1-percenters. They could end up with their highest federal tax rate since 1997 this year.

(Read more: Young women say sexism happens, but not to them)

However, the greatest disparity in the report is the one mentioned above, regarding the share of individual income taxes paid by various income groups.

First, let's look at incomes. The report shows the lowest-paid Americans earned on average $8,100 in 2010 but received nearly $25,000 in government aid. You begin to see how "transfers" create a negative tax burden.

But wait, there more. The CBO says about a quarter of the lowest earning group actually paid negative 15 percent of all individual income taxes. Contrast that with the combined share of the wealthiest two groups, which totals more than 100 percent.

Fair or not, I will let you be the judge.

People who make more should pay more, generally speaking. In America, they are. Yes, the rich (and almost rich) are getting richer. When it comes to individual income taxes, they're also covering the entire bill. And leaving a tip.

Let’s look at the numbers. Using data from the Internal Revenue Service in 2009, the top 1% of earners, including individuals with incomes of $343,927 or greater, represented 16.9% of all income and paid 36.7% of all federal taxes. Their average tax rate was 24.01%. The top 0.1% who had incomes of $1,432,890 or greater represented 7.8% of all income and paid 17.11% of all taxes. Their average rate was 24.3%. If we assume that a secretary’s adjusted gross income falls between $32,396 and $66,193 in 2009, the average tax rate for that income group (which represents individuals in the top 25%-50% of all earners) was 5.56%. (The entire group of earners between the top 25%-top 50% earned 20.7% of all income and paid 11.0% of all Federal income taxes.)
If we take a closer look at the top 0.1% of earners, their average adjusted gross income in 2009 was $4.4 million and their average tax bill was $1.07 million. Included in this group were 137,982 tax returns. Their total tax bill was $147.6 billion. Several sources indicate that the average income range for Secretary III’s and Administrative Assistants is between $38,000 and $43,000, and that there are 4.3 million secretaries and administrative assistants in the U.S. (http://www.bis.gov). Using the average 5.6% tax rate for the tax payors in the top 25%-50% of earners, each secretary on the average pays between $2,128 and $2,408 in taxes.

So what do the facts tell us? First, the average tax payor in the top 0.1% of all earners (the group which includes the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires) pays a tax rate over four (4) times that of an average secretary. Second, the average tax payor in the top 0.1% of all earners pays as much in taxes as 444 secretaries (the income of these top 0.1% earners is about 102 times the income of the average secretary). Third, if one raised the tax rate paid by these 137,982 tax payors to 30% (as is being proposed in the so-called Buffet rule), it would take over 43 years of collecting this additional tax revenue to just equal the Federal budget deficit for one year, 2011. (We have a huge spending problem.)

Seth

You are very hung up on intangibles. 'Rights', and principles, and morality.

Indeed, because without intangibles like rights, principles and morality, civilization would cease to exist and tyranny would run rampant, as it does in every state where rights, principles and morality are given second-class status and the individual is the property of the state, to be used, abused and abandoned at the whim and caprice of some government bureaucrat.

IMHO those considerations are secondary at best.

No big surprise there. So long as your bread gets buttered you don't care who has to pay for it.

I look to tangible results. You say that coercion on wearing car seat helts is immoral, but it dropped the death toll by 10% in my country. A human life saved is tangible, not one of those airy fairy, wishy washy and useless intangibles.

Based on this reasoning you give your government the authority to regulate every single aspect of your life and to forbid you from ever taking any risk at all. Are you sure you want to live in that kind of society? I don't. My life is not your problem, your life is not my problem. You live and die as you wish and I'll live and die as I wish. I fail to see what's wrong with that principle. Anything beyond that constitutes involuntary servitude, either to your interests or the interests of the collective, and your pragmatist approach does not address the very real problems that occur when the collective decides it knows best how one must behave and is able to use the force of government to ensure obedience.

That you cannot see beyond your own self interest and moralizing about the inherent value of human life and recognize that people have a right to live as they prefer, not as you prefer, shows just how deeply indoctrinated you actually are. You say you "look to tangible results," but this is false because you judge those results based on your own view of "intangibles," including the value of human life and the power of the collective to rule humans to protect it.

In short, unless I'm initiating force or fraud against YOU, what I do with my life is absolutely none of your business whatsoever, and whether I live or die by my decisions is not within your authority to regulate. Ever.

[Blind groper]

Seth

You point out that the lowest income earners are negative tax payers. This is, of course, what we have been talking about all along. Top earners support those who are less fortunate, and that is absolutely right and proper. However, those at the very top nearly always end up paying less that the amount they would if they simply paid the proper percentage on their earnings. This is because their accountants and lawyers are very good at seizing every loophole. Which is why those accountants and lawyers are paid top dollar.

Middle earners normally end up taking the greatest tax burden. They cannot pay top accountants and lawyers.

On tangibles and intangibles.

A human life is tangible. The 'right' not to pay taxes is intangible. A person dying of a curable disease due to lack of money is tangible. The 'right' to refuse contributions towards saving that person's life is intangible.

[Seth]

Seth

You point out that the lowest income earners are negative tax payers.

Actually it was CNBC, but I get your drift.

This is, of course, what we have been talking about all along. Top earners support those who are less fortunate, and that is absolutely right and proper.

Why is it "right and proper?" The gist of the argument for making the rich pay to support the poor is based in the logic of "they have it and others need it, so let's take it from them." There is no fundamental moral analysis of that reasoning, you simply take it as a matter of faith that it's "right and proper" that the have-nots take what they want by force from the haves. But you fail to explain your philosophical moral reasoning as to why this is justifiable, much less why it is the preferred method of taking care of the less fortunate.

I've asked the root question many times and you have just as many times evaded answering it. What is your moral reasoning behind asserting that it is right and proper for one man, who has less than another, to take what he wants by force against the will of the other person.

If you can't reason your way out of that question you cannot support your claim with anything other than a utilitarian and immoral argument that "might makes right."

However, those at the very top nearly always end up paying less that the amount they would if they simply paid the proper percentage on their earnings.

So, more 70 percent of the taxes collected isn't enough for you. How much is enough, and how do you justify that figure?

This is because their accountants and lawyers are very good at seizing every loophole. Which is why those accountants and lawyers are paid top dollar.

So? "Loopholes" are there to be used. If you don't like them, take it up with the government. You can hardly blame anyone for obeying the law.

Middle earners normally end up taking the greatest tax burden. They cannot pay top accountants and lawyers.

Stupidity is its own reward. The tax statutes are available to all, and anyone that qualifies for a "loophole" can take advantage of it. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

On tangibles and intangibles.

A human life is tangible.

Yup.

The 'right' not to pay taxes is intangible.

Where did this "right not to pay taxes" come from?

A person dying of a curable disease due to lack of money is tangible.

Yup.

The 'right' to refuse contributions towards saving that person's life is intangible.

There's your error. The "contribution" you demand is not in the least bit intangible. It is a cash amount that represents an amount of labor by the taxpayer. It's completely tangible, and if it's taken from the taxpayer without his consent it's an example of involuntary servitude.

Your problem is that you have not established a philosophical or moral basis for assuming that one individual is financially or physically responsible for another individual, you try to assume it a priori, which is a logical fallacy.

Beyond the many and manifest problems with making each person responsible for the well-being of every other person, you fail to address the fundamental question I posed above. If you cannot show that the taking of property from one person who has "too much" of it by another person who has less of it is morally acceptable, you cannot hope to make a case for doing so in the abstract with respect to persons unknown to the taxpayer for whom he or she has not accepted financial responsibility.

I'm aware that you place a high value on life, but it is not therefore true that every individual has a positive duty to provide for the well-being of every other individual.