Red Mosquito • View topic - Apparently people care...the ongoing saga of the US Economy!

broken iris · **Posted:** Thu Jul 19, 2012 2:25 pm

stip wrote:

It indicates that the tax burden of this country has shifted to individual tax payers, and reflects a broader privileging of business interests over the interests of individual citizens.

I agree this is probably the case, I just don't think those specific percentages illustrate that, due to the wild variance of the input components and regulation and accounting methodology changes over the nearly 60 years they cover.

stip wrote:

Also, in response to the article you linked (which was interesting), what counts as a transfer payment is itself contestable, a question of perspective. If the tax on capital gains is lowered, or you get a mortgage deduction on a second home, does that count as a transfer payment?

This is a excellent question. I would not count a change in the capital gains tax as a transfer payment any more than I would count a decrease in the income tax as a raise in salary, but I agree that a tax deduction for a mortgage on a non-primary residence is essentially a transfer of wealth. I am not sure how much that would effect the top 1% though, I doubt they carry high mortgages on additional properties, but there are other substantial tax tricks available, especially on large lot properties, that can be taken advantage of by the wealthy.

EllisEamos · **Posted:** Thu Jul 19, 2012 8:27 pm

Quote:

"There are a lot of people in government who help us and allow us to have an economy that works and allow entrepreneurs and business leaders of various kinds to start businesses and create jobs. We all recognize that. That's an important thing.... I know that you recognize that a lot of people help you in a business. Perhaps the banks, the investors. There's no question your mom and dad. Your school teachers. The people that provide roads, the fire, and the police. A lot of people help."

mitt romney says it well.

LittleWing · **Joined:** Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:43 am **Posts:** 10694

stip wrote:

It indicates that the tax burden of this country has shifted to individual tax payers, and reflects a broader privileging of business interests over the interests of individual citizens.

At the same time, since so much of our wealth is now generated from our financial sector, which is good at playing the tax game (and lobbying so that the wealth they generate is undertaxed) it may reflect a more narrow phenomena. I would be surprised to learn that overall business profits are lower (are they?). In either case I think it speaks to an overburdening of citizens

How can you say this since all corporate taxes are simply rolled into consumer prices? Taxation is taken into account on marginal rates of return. Taxation matters. Taxation is a real cost.

Human Bass essentially nailed it right on the head. Our interconnectedness begins and ends with our willful, free transactions that we willfully choose to engage in. The teacher got paid. The construction worker who built the road got paid. The workers of the company got paid. The idea that business owners are supposed to bring a product to market within a society, sell that product at a price the people are willing to bear, reap a profit, but then be indebted to some additional taxation to fund the things that their customers and workers want is absurd. Your contribution to society is reflected in your paycheck. The rich person doesn't owe any more of the fruits of his labor then I or any other poor person does.

@ Ellis - No private company could build the interstate highway system because the federal government monopolized it. Who builds all of Wal*Marts parking lots. Do you think that if government didn't build roads that there wouldn't be any roads? Do you think that if push came to shove that businesses wouldn't construct private roads?

EllisEamos · **Posted:** Fri Jul 20, 2012 7:22 am

LittleWing wrote:

Human Bass essentially nailed it right on the head. Our interconnectedness begins and ends with our willful, free transactions that we willfully choose to engage in. The teacher got paid. The construction worker who built the road got paid. The workers of the company got paid.

by whom exactly were these people paid? nobody is suggesting that these jobs were carried out by volunteers. These are examples of equal interconnectedness, as oppose to selective (best for the bottom line) interconnectedness.

LittleWing wrote:

The idea that business owners are supposed to bring a product to market within a society, sell that product at a price the people are willing to bear, reap a profit, but then be indebted to some additional taxation to fund the things that their customers and workers want is absurd. Your contribution to society is reflected in your paycheck. The rich person doesn't owe any more of the fruits of his labor then I or any other poor person does.

if the rich person's "labor" benefits more (proportionally) from the infrastructure that was (supposedly) funded equally by the entire nation, than i'd say a tax is warranted.

LittleWing wrote:

No private company could build the interstate highway system because the federal government monopolized it. Who builds all of Wal*Marts parking lots. Do you think that if government didn't build roads that there wouldn't be any roads? Do you think that if push came to shove that businesses wouldn't construct private roads?

private roads across the entire country would be an economic disaster and you know it. robber barons demonstrated this for us and need not be repeated.

stip · **Posted:** Fri Jul 20, 2012 10:00 am

EllisEamos wrote:

LittleWing wrote:

No private company could build the interstate highway system because the federal government monopolized it. Who builds all of Wal*Marts parking lots. Do you think that if government didn't build roads that there wouldn't be any roads? Do you think that if push came to shove that businesses wouldn't construct private roads?

private roads across the entire country would be an economic disaster and you know it. robber barons demonstrated this for us and need not be repeated.

Nuh uh. Those railroads were created by the free market and therefore, by definition, were automatically better than any other alternative.

stip · **Posted:** Fri Jul 20, 2012 10:06 am

LittleWing wrote:

Human Bass essentially nailed it right on the head. Our interconnectedness begins and ends with our willful, free transactions that we willfully choose to engage in.

Arguing whether or not we OWE each other additional obligations because of our interconnectedness is a totally fair question. We'll disagree, but it is an important conversation to have, and the disagreements are legitimate and will really depend on the first principles we're starting from (definitions of justice, obligation, fairness, freedom, etc). This is basically what a good chunk of our politics is about.

But denying the way in which all economic (all social activity, for that matter) is heavily contingent on the larger interrelated context that houses and produces it (not just the activity, but the demand for the activity, the origins of it, and the complex of rules and guarantees that safeguard and legitimate it) seems to me to reify the nature of social activity. Economic activity does not happen in a vacuum.

EllisEamos · **Posted:** Fri Jul 20, 2012 10:21 am

stip wrote:

Economic activity does not happen in a vacuum.

broken iris · **Posted:** Fri Jul 20, 2012 12:15 pm

stip wrote:

Arguing whether or not we OWE each other additional obligations because of our interconnectedness is a totally fair question. We'll disagree, but it is an important conversation to have, and the disagreements are legitimate and will really depend on the first principles we're starting from (definitions of justice, obligation, fairness, freedom, etc). This is basically what a good chunk of our politics is about.

This is a difficult discussion, because it will require the assessment of the relative value of the contributions made. What are the relative values of the contributions of pediatric neurosurgeon versus a Blackwater-type contractor versus a teacher versus some welfare-ghetto thug. How much does each owe each other? At what point does someone get to say "No, I will help give more to this person"?

stip · **Posted:** Fri Jul 20, 2012 2:40 pm

broken iris wrote:

stip wrote:

Arguing whether or not we OWE each other additional obligations because of our interconnectedness is a totally fair question. We'll disagree, but it is an important conversation to have, and the disagreements are legitimate and will really depend on the first principles we're starting from (definitions of justice, obligation, fairness, freedom, etc). This is basically what a good chunk of our politics is about.

This is a difficult discussion, because it will require the assessment of the relative value of the contributions made. What are the relative values of the contributions of pediatric neurosurgeon versus a Blackwater-type contractor versus a teacher versus some welfare-ghetto thug. How much does each owe each other? At what point does someone get to say "No, I will help give more to this person"?

It is a difficult discussion for sure.

EllisEamos · **Posted:** Fri Jul 20, 2012 4:48 pm

the finer points of the debate not withstanding, can we all agree that things are interconnected/ interdependent and end this discussion w/ regard to the presidential election?

http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-pre ... d-20120719

Quote:

On a campaign stop, Romney sought to rebut Obama by highlighting the success of an auto repair shop started by a local entrepreneur. “This is not the result of government,” Romney told reporters, referring to Middlesex Truck & Coach after he toured the shop. “This is the result of people who take risk, who have dreams, who build for themselves and for their families.”

Company owner Brian Maloney, 69, agreed with Romney’s assessment. “I take umbrage at the suggestion that people don’t start and build businesses,” Maloney said. “I started out with 500 bucks and worked with my hands to afford grad school at night. My wife supported me. Started a little body shop and was able to bring together people, one at a time.”

He added: "We don't need any more of government's help. We haven't had any. We've only had pain. It's overbearing. It's top-heavy."

But in an interview with Boston-based reporter Jon Keller of WBZ-TV, Maloney acknowledged that his business received some government help. “The only way I was able to come here, because I had no money, was with an industrial-revenue bond,” Maloney said in the interview. Industrial-revenue bonds are typically issued by local and state governments to attract new business to an area. They create low-interest loans for new development and startups.

government is not the boogie man, they take risks on business just like private investors.
entrepreneurs need help or they'll just be comic book salesman.

thodoks · **Joined:** Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:19 pm **Posts:** 25134

haha everything

EllisEamos · **Posted:** Fri Jul 20, 2012 4:57 pm

thodoks wrote:

haha everything

does this include your thoughts on the LIBOR & HSBC scandals?

LittleWing · **Joined:** Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:43 am **Posts:** 10694

EllisEamos wrote:

the finer points of the debate not withstanding, can we all agree that things are interconnected/ interdependent and end this discussion w/ regard to the presidential election?

http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-pre ... d-20120719

Quote:

On a campaign stop, Romney sought to rebut Obama by highlighting the success of an auto repair shop started by a local entrepreneur. “This is not the result of government,” Romney told reporters, referring to Middlesex Truck & Coach after he toured the shop. “This is the result of people who take risk, who have dreams, who build for themselves and for their families.”

Company owner Brian Maloney, 69, agreed with Romney’s assessment. “I take umbrage at the suggestion that people don’t start and build businesses,” Maloney said. “I started out with 500 bucks and worked with my hands to afford grad school at night. My wife supported me. Started a little body shop and was able to bring together people, one at a time.”

He added: "We don't need any more of government's help. We haven't had any. We've only had pain. It's overbearing. It's top-heavy."

But in an interview with Boston-based reporter Jon Keller of WBZ-TV, Maloney acknowledged that his business received some government help. “The only way I was able to come here, because I had no money, was with an industrial-revenue bond,” Maloney said in the interview. Industrial-revenue bonds are typically issued by local and state governments to attract new business to an area. They create low-interest loans for new development and startups.

government is not the boogie man, they take risks on business just like private investors.
entrepreneurs need help or they'll just be comic book salesman.

Government isn't a boogey so long as it is protecting individual rights to life, liberty, and property. Once it starts taking one man's liberty and giving it to another, then it becomes a boogey man. Government has absolutely no business taking risks on business "just like private investors" because they are not acting in similar interests as private investors do. They are socializing the costs and risks of the projects THEY want to see implemented. It's totally immoral and unethical. If people within government wish to see certain investments brought to fruition then they should do it with their own capital, and not risk the capital of others.

LittleWing · **Joined:** Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:43 am **Posts:** 10694

stip wrote:

LittleWing wrote:

Human Bass essentially nailed it right on the head. Our interconnectedness begins and ends with our willful, free transactions that we willfully choose to engage in.

Arguing whether or not we OWE each other additional obligations because of our interconnectedness is a totally fair question. We'll disagree, but it is an important conversation to have, and the disagreements are legitimate and will really depend on the first principles we're starting from (definitions of justice, obligation, fairness, freedom, etc). This is basically what a good chunk of our politics is about.

But denying the way in which all economic (all social activity, for that matter) is heavily contingent on the larger interrelated context that houses and produces it (not just the activity, but the demand for the activity, the origins of it, and the complex of rules and guarantees that safeguard and legitimate it) seems to me to reify the nature of social activity. Economic activity does not happen in a vacuum.

Unless Locke's appletree is monopolized, then no, it isn't a fair question at all. I'm only as interconnected as I choose to be. And that interconnectedness begins and ends at the free transactions I freely choose to participate in. Third parties have no right to determine what the value of those transactions should be if they don't violate the rights of the third party. Nor should they have the power or ability to artificially increase the value of the transactions that they are involved in. You can define those terms of the discussion anyway you please. It doesn't alter the fact that HumanBass, Doks, and I, should have any power to get between your private transactions with Ellis.

The demand for activity, any activity, is completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The only thing that is important is the ability to facilitate the demand, the willingness to facilitate the demand, and the value that members of society place upon their own self-fulfilling demands in relation to the value of their own labor. Economies are nothing but the integration of singular free transactions. Each transaction is a differential within itself, and whatever preceded that transaction is totally irrelevant. If I want to build a sandcastle, and desire a shovel to make it easier, the guy that built the equipment, to build the machines, that made the equipment, that facilitated the production of the shovel, which led to its shipment to the warehouse, which was carted around on a fork lift, put on another truck to a retail store, that was powered by an electric company, and sold at the register operated by a cash register girl, that stuff is not relevant, nor are the teachers, or the people who built the roads, or Barack Obama. The ONLY thing that matters is my transfer of currency to the owner in exchange for the shovel. Everything else is completely independent actions, free transactions, and free actions. Transactions that were compensated for from free transfers of wealth. I owe nothing to anyone in the chain when I buy the shovel aside from what they've already been compensated for in the cost I'm willing to pay for the shovel.

There is no origin of debt between me and anybody else in that relationship. Everyone is square in the chain of events that lead to me having the shovel.

And should I choose to build my castle with two other people, that is our decision. Independent of Mr. Obama, regardless of how much he wants to claim to responsible for everything under the sun.

You're right that economic activity doesn't happen in a vacuum, but just because it doesn't happen in a vacuum doesn't imply any inherent origin of debt between the economic agents within any jurisdiction, or the economic agents in any free transaction.

stip · **Posted:** Sat Jul 21, 2012 1:53 am

interesting little piece on Adam Smith and Obama's comment

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/c ... z21BoTwC8Y

thodoks · **Joined:** Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:19 pm **Posts:** 25134

i'm going to post in this thread soon enough

GET PSYCHED

stip · **Posted:** Sat Jul 21, 2012 8:21 pm

which thread are you going to post in first?

EllisEamos · **Posted:** Sat Jul 21, 2012 8:22 pm

i'd much prefer pumping to psyching.

EllisEamos · **Posted:** Sat Jul 21, 2012 8:23 pm

stip wrote:

which thread are you going to post in first?

suspenseful!

bmacsmith · **Joined:** Fri Jul 10, 2009 5:52 pm **Posts:** 8288

anyone else think "quantitative easing" is about as neutral a term as "ethnic cleansing"?

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