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Economics is a science based on fundamentals, formulas, and data.
Not it is not a science. They call it a social science because it is barely empirical. That's why economics is not taught by the science department at a university. It is usually part of liberal arts or its own department.
Economics TRIES to invent and apply formulas to help governments create public policy. But it doesn't work so cleanly because human beings are the targets of these policies. Even a primitive concept like supply and demand relies on human behavior, which is not infallible.
Conservatism is dependent on people forgetting that it has always failed. Yet someone it remains a "viable" school of thought for most of the developed world. This reality is puzzling to me.
"Conservatism can't fail, it can only be failed."
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Originally Posted by hoffdano
So you want to discourage people from striving to be billionaires.....
So Bill Gates, whose wealth was almost entirely built from his equity holdings (stock) related to Microsoft - what would you want to see happen differently as he became more and more successful with Microsoft? As his shares grew in value from the early days to billions - what public policy makes sense to you?
Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire overnight. What would you do about him?
What about Warren Buffett - who has been doing this for perhaps 60 years?
Maybe discourage is the wrong word. Make it more difficult to the point of impossibility, I should say. As far as what public policy makes sense to me, taxing capital gains like ordinary income and taxing income at 50-70% at higher tax brackets makes sense to me, plus higher progressive property taxes.
Conservatism is dependent on people forgetting that it has always failed. Yet someone it remains a "viable" school of thought for most of the developed world. This reality is puzzling to me.
Perhaps because wherever we see collectivism implemented, we see mediocrity, failure, weakness, corruption, a lack of innovation, a lack of achievement, worship of the least common denominator, and an overall miasma of failure. And those are the good points. Ultimately, we see collapse, as in Greece and Spain and soon, all of Europe.
Maybe discourage is the wrong word. Make it more difficult to the point of impossibility, I should say. As far as what public policy makes sense to me, taxing capital gains like ordinary income and taxing income at 50-70% at higher tax brackets makes sense to me, plus higher progressive property taxes.
Do you think punishing people who are better than you will make you better? Or happier? Or more effective? Or more valuable? No, you probably don't. But you probably don't care about that. You've written off your life, now it's time to write off the lives of others. Correct?
Do you think punishing people who are better than you will make you better? Or happier? Or more effective? Or more valuable? No, you probably don't. But you probably don't care about that. You've written off your life, now it's time to write off the lives of others. Correct?
I don't have any interest in punishing people that are better than me. I have an interest in living in a free society. I do think that promoting freedom and morality will make me happier.
Maybe discourage is the wrong word. Make it more difficult to the point of impossibility, I should say. As far as what public policy makes sense to me, taxing capital gains like ordinary income and taxing income at 50-70% at higher tax brackets makes sense to me, plus higher progressive property taxes.
Super high tax rates will likely have unintended consequences. You will cause high income people to earn their money outside the US to escape taxes. That does nothing good for the US. Others will find new ways to hide income to avoid punitive taxation.
I think taxing capital gains as ordinary income is a legitimate topic for discussion, though economists have differing views on the sense of that.
Do you understand that people like Gates and Buffett don't really have massive capital gains? They have massive wealth, and only have capital gains when they sell stock or other assets? Gates could have $50M or $100M in capital gains, and taxing it more than 20% wouldn't really generate that much revenue.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankMiller
I don't have any interest in punishing people that are better than me. I have an interest in living in a free society. I do think that promoting freedom and morality will make me happier.
Freedom to be successful, and freedom to keep the money that you earn?
I don't have any interest in punishing people that are better than me. I have an interest in living in a free society. I do think that promoting freedom and morality will make me happier.
LOL is a cliche, but reading this elicited an actual LOL in my office. Too bloody rich! You want to live in a free society? You can't handle living in a free society! Abominably surreal. The guy comes out for taking money away from people because he arbitrarily declares they don't deserve it, and now he's a FREEDOM FIGHTER! The guy believes that the world is inherently unjust, allowing him to steal from others out of need, and now he wants to promote "freedom and morality" so he will be "happier". Ludicrous? No: the collectivist mentality permits and encourages such grotesque and perverse logical misadventures.
You know what? Stop lying. Kwhite and Opin Yunated are miserable and never-to-be-happy leftists, but they admit and parade their philosophical failings as if they are features in a new car. You need to do the same. The disparate and fragmented globules of consciousness that meander through your brain like some tragic broken Lava Lamp and pass for your philosophy are bankrupt and morose, and you know it. So own it! It's yours!
I get to be the one around here promoting freedom. Because I actually believe in it. You don't, you never did, you never will. Here's a hint my dopey old padawan: Freedom and theft don't go together!
It could have been your union member father, or your Euro-grandfather, or your ill-advised and misinformed left wing professors, but you bought their bankrupt and prostrate line of deterministic utilitarian tyranny hook, line, sinker, gastroscope, proctoscope, and colostomy bag. Now you get to wear it, with the illogical malevolent slime leaking out the side and stinking up the room. It's horrible, but it's yours. So stick a clothes pin on your nose and be the ball.
Last edited by Marc Paolella; 05-31-2014 at 12:45 AM..
Perhaps because wherever we see collectivism implemented, we see mediocrity, failure, weakness, corruption, a lack of innovation, a lack of achievement, worship of the least common denominator, and an overall miasma of failure. And those are the good points. Ultimately, we see collapse, as in Greece and Spain and soon, all of Europe.
All of Europe? That's quite a stretch. Now you sound like the former poster Grandpa Pipes, OP of this thread, who was always posting links to the Economic Collapse Blog and saying the sky was falling.
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