doing some online looking at US systems.
Interesting
e.g.
‪Fault Lines - The Top 1%‬‏ - YouTube
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/op...pagewanted=all
08-07-2011 11:40 PM
#1
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trolling freetrollers
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to wuf: faultlines and the rich, obama's failingsdoing some online looking at US systems. |
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08-08-2011 01:51 AM
#2
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The most fundamental thing to understand about economics is that it's all about recycling wealth. Imagine that every dollar you ever got was numbered in order of receiving it, and you have to spend each dollar in order of reception. This would illustrate a continual recycling pattern of every penny in the economy. When the amount recycled slows, the economy slows, and the effects are layoffs and reduced wages, etc. |
08-08-2011 03:44 AM
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08-08-2011 04:26 AM
#4
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08-08-2011 12:56 PM
#5
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08-08-2011 01:15 PM
#6
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IMO, | |
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08-08-2011 01:19 PM
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I believe these assumptions to be highly fallacious. | |
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08-08-2011 01:20 PM
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08-08-2011 01:30 PM
#9
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These are neat questions. The first question supposes someone who probably is not prepared to have money. In that that person probably has no analogue for what someone successful would do with money, and no network of people he can trust to give him the information he needs to not be preyed upon. | |
Last edited by a500lbgorilla; 08-08-2011 at 01:33 PM. | |
08-08-2011 01:45 PM
#10
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Talking out of your ass with authority is still talking out of your ass. | |
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08-08-2011 01:55 PM
#11
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Whose ass is talking? | |
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08-08-2011 02:07 PM
#12
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Hi, I'm wufwugy. | |
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08-08-2011 02:37 PM
#13
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Well, you made me think I may have been talking out of my ass. | |
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08-08-2011 02:46 PM
#14
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Even if that were true, it wouldn't have a detrimental effect on the economy because of turnaround spending with tax dollars. But also, that's not a worry because the idea of taxing the rich more than the poor is borne of hoarding practices that come around when people are effectively too rich |
08-08-2011 02:50 PM
#15
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14 Ways a 90 Percent Top Tax Rate Fixes Our Economy and Our Country | OurFuture.org | |
Last edited by Jack Sawyer; 08-08-2011 at 03:00 PM.
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08-08-2011 03:07 PM
#16
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It would be nice to get an actual rebuttal. Tell me why it's not true. | |
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08-08-2011 03:15 PM
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08-08-2011 03:19 PM
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08-08-2011 03:31 PM
#19
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Higher taxes on the wealthy doesn't curb their spending and investment because it's meant to address the hoarding issue. We're not interested in cutting into their cyclical consumption or investment. That's why one of the caveats of progressive taxation is that investment can lower your bracket. This is one reason why high taxes on the rich work so well, because it promotes investment instead of hoarding. Currently, our paradigm is the opposite. Soooooo much money has been hoarded, that the richies say they're waiting to use it on good investments, but they don't realize (or more like don't care) that it's because of all that hoarding that the consumption cycle is disrupted and those investments opportunities are not arising |
08-08-2011 04:07 PM
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08-08-2011 04:09 PM
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08-08-2011 04:13 PM
#22
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08-08-2011 04:16 PM
#23
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That doesn't actually tell us anything because it doesn't isolate much. Besides, it's an effect that should be predicted if rilla's assertion was right because it would demonstrate a lot of rich people not being rich based in merit. And what about all those hard workers who are financially astute, yet not rich |
08-08-2011 04:23 PM
#24
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I think your points earlier about some in other countries really not having a realistic chance of becoming rich are pretty spot on. e.g. one couldn't convince me that a starving kid in Africa has much of a chance | |
08-08-2011 04:30 PM
#25
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I proposed that in a direct response to rilla's quote that the only difference between rich and the poor is in the bank account. Which, actually, in a roundabout way with a strict definition might actually be right | |
08-08-2011 04:31 PM
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08-08-2011 04:38 PM
#27
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You are right that I think circumstance is the most important thing. It's what I see in any area whenever I look. One example is evolution being almost entirely about environment. Biologically, nothing about who we are wasn't borne of circumstance. It's a difficult thing to reconcile with other things like ego, though, because even things that seem non-circumstantial still are. Like one person being smarter or more driven is still best explained by that person's circumstances. The way I look at it is that when you're living your own life, you have to treat things as if they're not circumstantial and there is no determinism, but when developing macro models for things like society, you have to account for circumstantial selection, so to speak |
08-08-2011 04:40 PM
#28
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I think my posts come off easier to read if one would define rich-poor as more of a spectrum, since most people fall somewhere between the extremes. Or the ever-arbitrary continuum of successful-not successful. | |
08-08-2011 04:45 PM
#29
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This all sounds spot on. I guess I just see drive and responsibility as attributes of circumstance and not innate. I believe that you could take the same person and have him put up in two different environments and see him turn out to be two different people: one driven, hungry, with an intuition that is honed to the problems at hand, and one that turns out more or less worthless by comparison. But both are still innately the same person. | |
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08-08-2011 04:47 PM
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08-08-2011 04:49 PM
#31
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08-08-2011 04:56 PM
#32
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08-08-2011 05:00 PM
#33
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You explained it well with the multiverse, a500lbitch. |
08-08-2011 05:12 PM
#34
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What you do with your time and energy is up to you. I wholeheartedly respect your opinion on that. | |
08-08-2011 05:26 PM
#35
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Last edited by Jack Sawyer; 08-08-2011 at 05:33 PM.
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08-08-2011 05:34 PM
#36
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So if the rich don't invest in a bad economy then you raise their taxes to try to force them to invest so they will be in a lower bracket. What if they decide to cut costs by laying off employees, or reduce income by closing stores? It's their choice but they get targeted by the guvmint with all the blame. | |
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08-08-2011 05:41 PM
#37
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@jack | |
08-08-2011 05:43 PM
#38
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But what if you decide that you are going to sit out of the tournament for a while and just donate your blinds. Then the tournament director decides you are being greedy and forces you to play more hands and actually bet some of your chips. If you refuse then he takes 20% of your chips and divides them between the short stacks. Will you play in this type of tournament again? | |
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08-08-2011 05:47 PM
#39
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Jacks entire last post is caesar salad. | |
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08-08-2011 05:49 PM
#40
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I don't know what the best numbers are, but the base is in developing a system where one person's worth doesn't exceed a particular percentage of median would be probably the best realistic way of doing it. We already have very strong evidence for this kind thing anyways in that income of the wealthy has been dramatically increasing relative to median, yet the health of the society has gone down. |
08-08-2011 05:51 PM
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08-08-2011 05:53 PM
#42
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08-08-2011 05:54 PM
#43
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FWIW, if I were in charge I would probably go for something like 60% at income above 1 million. My other proposal would drastically change the world and would do things like stifle some aspects of globalization. But I think it would actually boost technological advances. Regardless, the perfect world paradigm is very tight-nit with very low inequality |
08-08-2011 05:54 PM
#44
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If you taxed the top 1% at 100% would this help? | |
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08-08-2011 06:02 PM
#45
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In sticking with the poker tournament analogy, the blinds always keep going up. Assuming your proposition to sit out, there inevitably comes a point where the blinds are so high that you are still blinded out. | |
Last edited by Jack Sawyer; 08-08-2011 at 06:19 PM.
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08-08-2011 06:05 PM
#46
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10 CEOs On $1 Salaries (Apart From Their $Millions in Stock Options) | Business Pundit | |
Last edited by Jack Sawyer; 08-08-2011 at 06:08 PM.
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08-08-2011 06:15 PM
#47
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The economy is bad because they have too much of its money. At every given point we're dealing with finite wealth in an economy, and since the economy churns only on cyclical consumption, when there is lack of demand it's because there's too much wealth stuffed away in pockets of the system not contributing. The rich are currently richer than they have ever been. That is why the economy is so shitty. They are holding onto the very wealth that is needed to run the economy via cyclical consumption |
08-08-2011 06:49 PM
#48
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Laffer curve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia | |
08-08-2011 07:17 PM
#49
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what are people paying above 1 million now? 35% federal income tax + payroll taxes (capped) + state + local? Isn't that close to 50% already for someone making $1m/year? Heck pre-Bush tax cuts it is probably right around that 60%. | |
Last edited by Lukie; 08-08-2011 at 07:20 PM. | |
08-08-2011 07:56 PM
#50
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trolling freetrollers
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I wonder what would happen to the tax take if nobody tried to evade any tax? or if everyone involved in tax evasion (the people paying less tax AND the lawyers and accountants who signed in on it) was busted and charged - jail is probably more of a deterrent (1/2 of the deterrent/punishment thing) to these people than to your average neighbourhood crack dealer... |
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08-08-2011 08:06 PM
#51
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i can't come up with a reply that doesn't make me sound like an entitled selfish asshole so i'm just gonna stop trying. | |
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08-08-2011 09:18 PM
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Exemptions and capital gains. I think it's accurate to say that the majority of enormous earnings come in form of capital gains, which are taxed low. Regardless, big earners avoid sooooooooooo much taxation through exemptions. I believe it was Warren Buffet who said he pays a lower rate than his secretary |
08-08-2011 11:00 PM
#53
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nvm I regret entering this thread | |
Last edited by IowaSkinsFan; 08-08-2011 at 11:22 PM.
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08-09-2011 01:37 AM
#54
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wufindows 8: | |
08-09-2011 01:55 AM
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08-09-2011 12:01 PM
#56
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Let's say I own a huge tomato farm, and I have what people feel are the best Tomatoes in the entire world. People come from all over the United States to buy my Tomatoes during harvest (at only slightly above a normal tomato's price cause i'm an altruistic guy). I earn 1 million dollars from the harvest and a couple hundred thousand people have my tomatoes. | |
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08-09-2011 12:16 PM
#57
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Please god no island examples. | |
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08-09-2011 02:16 PM
#58
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I'm glad you did this because it can perfectly illustrate the US economy of recent |
08-09-2011 03:30 PM
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08-09-2011 03:55 PM
#60
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That's the opposite of what I'm saying. That the latter is more wealthy is a demonstration of the necessity of cyclical wealth distribution. I'm not advocating for an equity of all wealth throughout the system, but a balance. The lower rungs of an economy are necessary to keep the higher rungs operating well. The lack of investment we're seeing now is because the lower rungs are not able to participate in the economy the way they're supposed to. This is due to pretty much just two reasons 1) widening of wealth inequality, and 2) rising energy costs. |
08-09-2011 04:26 PM
#61
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We can use the tomatoes to create batteries and then I'll be like, what energy crisis? | |
08-09-2011 05:01 PM
#62
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I always thought it was BennyLaRuskie, not BennyLaReilly |
08-09-2011 05:09 PM
#63
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08-09-2011 05:11 PM
#64
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08-09-2011 05:13 PM
#65
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08-09-2011 05:36 PM
#66
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You were telling me that I said burning wealth and no longer participating in the system is better than consuming wealth and further participating in the system. |
08-09-2011 06:14 PM
#67
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That was after I ate the tomato and you didn't burn the money I paid for it with |
Last edited by wufwugy; 08-09-2011 at 06:16 PM. | |
08-09-2011 06:27 PM
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08-09-2011 06:56 PM
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08-09-2011 07:02 PM
#70
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08-09-2011 07:08 PM
#71
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I'm prob not going to look at this thread anymore but to give one good example: the regulation of the beer industry. There's a great documentary called beer wars I think that gets into it. The regulations are set up so the small companies have an artificially large disadvantage over larger competitors. | |
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08-09-2011 07:48 PM
#72
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Well if you won't see this, you won't see it, I guess |
08-09-2011 08:03 PM
#73
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That seems like an absurd over-simplification of a complex issue. | |
08-09-2011 09:38 PM
#74
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08-09-2011 09:40 PM
#75
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The US had very strong regulations on housing loans. They strongly encouraged banks to make shitty loans in the name of the "American Dream." The housing crash had everything to do with regulation. | |
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