Post: #51

(04-24-2014 10:48 AM)KorbenDallas Wrote:  Austrian economists are losing their shit similarly to how the Jews were losing their shit over Mein Kampf. Both groups understand the negative repercussions of idiotic literature blaming an "other" in times of economic crisis. This doesn't end well, especially for the poor and middle class, because the rich are the best suited and able to flee any country that takes this book seriously enough to implement policy based on Marxist drivel that has failed time and time again.

can austrians stop using the term "Marxist" as an all-encompassing insult? It's not. It's a term to refer to a certain kind of person that supports a certain set of ideas. It does not simply means "SOMEONE WHO LOVES BIG GUMMINT" or anyone who believes the gov't should do a little more than just protect property and enforce contracts.

Case in point: Piketty. If you REALLY studied economics (instead of just reading a dozen or so Mises.org pdfs), and maybe if you had actually read Pickety's damn book (instead of watching a five minute "rebuttal" video put out by the Ayn Rand Institute), maybe you'd realize Piketty is not a Marxist. In fact, he reserved some space in his book to trash Marxists and Marxism.

That's not to discredit Marxism however. I'm just saying you can't just call someone a "Marxist" in the same way you can call someone who is mean a "Nazi". At least not in a serious economic debate.

Post: #52

I think the major problem is that people actually believe in the democratic religion. We believe we are free and equal, but we are not. Since the dawn of time, a small elite have ruled the majority. This should really be an easy conclusion considering the base of redpill knowledge of the minority alpha banging the majority women or Roosh' recent post about the excellent man vs the 99,5% sheep.

We're always ruled. Communist societies were ruled by the corrupt party officials. The few truly anarchist societies required a willingness to use violence to defend your property and freedom, such as viking Iceland and that only lasted until the Danish king sailed to Iceland and threatened to kill them all if they didn't submit.

There is no equality and never has been. Humans have been ruled by Popes, Kings, Great Leaders, Party Directors etc for all time and likely will be as long as the average is very risk-averse.

The historic element is missing. We're always so quick to announce the end of history. 100 years ago there were Kings and royalty ruling subjects. 50 years ago there were despot tyrants in Europe. 20 years ago there was communist dictatorship.

I find this debate similar to MRAs vs Manosphere. Do we really expect to be able to topple people with years and years experience in real-politik and power plays within a few years? And do so by using the very channels they've set up themselves?

Nope, the best we can do is get behind things like Bitcoin and other anarchistic technology, which destroys political and historic monopolies.

Post: #53

I saw this book being discussed on Bill Moyers with Paul Krugman. Not a PK fan by any means but I do agree that the US/West is moving more towards oligarchy. I don't presume to have the answer but perhaps this may actually be tied to the increase in enfranchisement? As democracy devolves, and elections are decided by easily manipulated masses, perhaps more critical decisions necessarily become the provenance of the unelected deep state.

You can see the interview here:

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365227038/

One thing that annoyed me was this certain level of arrogance I picked up from Krugman as he discussed redistribution for it's own sake. So as the argument goes, you need to take away other people's money and then decide how to spend it for the public good, which sounds reasonable to some degree, since all governments must necessarily do this to some extent, but who decides? I get the sense that Krugman believes that only the "right sort of people" like himself (elite liberal types) are really "enlightened" enough to decide where to spend the money. Here's the catch: Keynesian economics seems to be incompatible with "democracy" at some level (or if not, then with the form of governance as it now stands in the USA), because, when the economy stalls and tax revenues fall, as public debt increases, the population seems to vote for the government to reduce it's spending, which is the opposite of what Keynes recommended.

Besides Piketty's proposed solution of a wealth tax, didn't Milton Friedman propose a guaranteed minimum income? Perhaps this would be a more free-market-oriented answer.

Post: #54

For me, the most revealing flaw of these socialist thinkers is that they never advance the idea of a net worth tax. Always the focus is shifted to high income earners, but those are people who actually work. As correctly noted, the real rich are rent seekers - they do not actually work!

Why not just slap a 5% net worth tax on the top 1%? And a 1% net worth tax on the top 20%. Would generate hundred of billions. Send that money to the poor, and reduce income taxes to relieve the middle class.

But none of these left wing "thinkers" ever propose such an idea, which leads me to believe they are nothing more than shills for the rich. Income taxes only keep the rich entrenched in power, but that's all the democrats ever want to do - tax the working class via income taxes.

The fact that none of the reviews about Piketty's book talk about a net worth tax leads me to believe he is also nothing more than a shill for the rich disguised as a hero for the poor.

Post: #55

I read a good article on this book by Michael Barone just this morning.

"Thomas Piketty calls for an 80 percent tax on incomes above $500,000 in the United States." Now that is insane.

Quote:Thomas Piketty wants income equality --- and the hell with growth
By Michael Barone
APRIL 30, 2014 AT 1:15 PM

French economist Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been inspiring a lot of comment and controversy. The English translation published last month zipped to No. 1 on amazon.com.

It has given a lift to economists on the Left who have cheered on President Obama's flagging attempts to make income inequality a voting issue. They have hailed it as “truly superb” and “extraordinarily important.”

Others, not all on the Right, have taken a jaundiced view. “All wrong” was the verdict of one. “The main argument is based on two (false) claims,” concluded another.

Piketty’s title echoes Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and his argument is similar: Returns on capital tend to exceed returns to labor, producing increasing income inequality and concentration of wealth.

That happened in the nineteenth century, he says, and is likely to happen again in the twenty-first. The twentieth century was a happy exception because of the wealth-destroying effects of two world wars and the Great Depression.

Piketty goes far beyond Obama's tepid responses -- a higher minimum wage, forgiveness of college loans -- to a red-hot remedy: an 80 percent tax on incomes above $500,000 in the United States. On global wealth, he proposes a progressive tax, topping out at two percent on fortunes greater than 5 billion euros ($6.9 billion).

That’s obviously not going to happen any time soon. But from the hosannas and harrumphs that have greeted the book — no, I haven’t read all 577 pages — certain conclusions can be drawn.

There is general agreement that Piketty has compiled an impressive array of data on income inequality in multiple nations going back 200 years or more. There is agreement also that he thoughtfully states caveats and cautions about data interpretation.

His thesis seems at least plausible at a time when the very top incomes have increased much more rapidly than those at the middle and bottom. Even some critics acknowledge that, as the Washington Post's Robert Samuelson writes, “the present concentration of income and wealth instinctively feels excessive. It understandably stirs resentment.”

But is his picture of current trends complete? The Manhattan Institute's Scott Winship points out that relying, as Piketty does, on tax returns for the U.S. statistics means omitting income from Social Security, food stamps, public housing, Medicare and Medicaid.

Tax returns count roommates and unmarried partners as separate units when they are part of a larger household. They don’t include employer-paid health insurance — an increasing share of employee compensation in recent decades.

Including these factors, Winship notes, means that incomes below the top 10 percent have not stagnated but have risen significantly since the 1970s. Increasing inequality is compatible with increases in ordinary people’s incomes.

Economist Tyler Cowen takes issue with another of Piketty’s assumptions, that the rich can earn 4 to 5 percent on their wealth “automatically, with the mere passage of time, rather than as the result of strategic risk taking.”

The French economist, Cowen says, has “a notion of capital as a growing, homogeneous blob” when in fact “sudden reversals and retrenchments are inevitable.”

Piketty concedes this is true for people with ordinary incomes. He opposes personal investment accounts in Social Security because there is too much risk of making bad investments.

His assumption that wealthy investors face no similar risks may have seemed plausible in the generation after World War II, when the Fortune 500 list of major companies remained remarkably stable.

But it has made little sense in recent years, when General Motors has gone bankrupt and Google, founded in 1998, is one of the world’s most highly valued companies.

“There's a persistent tension,” writes Bloomberg's Clive Crook, “between the limits of the data [Piketty] presents and the grandiosity of the conclusions he draws.”

Like global warming alarmists, he extrapolates from abstract theory and a few years' trend lines out a century forward -- and presents the results as inevitable.

He also presents them as justifying the confiscation, more or less, of wealth accumulated by private individuals and putting it in the hands of mandarins guided by their supposedly superior sensitivity to public welfare.

There might be less inequality in such a world, but also less economic growth and a lower, though more equal, standard of living.

“In perhaps the most revealing line of the book,” Cowen writes, “the 42-year-old Piketty writes that since the age of 25, he has not left Paris, ‘except for brief trips.’ ”

France, where a cozy elite runs government and large corporations, has a 75-percent top income tax rate and essentially zero economic growth. Is that the future American liberals want?

CLARIFICATION: Thomas Piketty calls for an 80 percent tax on incomes above $500,000 in the United States. On global wealth, he proposes a progressive tax, topping out at two percent on fortunes above 5 billion euros ($6.9 billion). This column was originally posted on April 27 and was updated at 1 p.m. April 30 to include this clarification.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/thomas-pik...le/2547740

Post: #56

Maybe we should be talking more about why there are higher taxes on people's labor vs. returns on capital and whether or not that is a just arrangement.

Samseau, Piketty did mention a wealth/ net worth tax in one of the interviews I heard.

Post: #57

(05-04-2014 10:06 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  Maybe we should be talking more about why there are higher taxes on people's labor vs. returns on capital and whether or not that is a just arrangement.

Samseau, Piketty did mention a wealth/ net worth tax in one of the interviews I heard.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11749...apital-tax

He argues for a global net worth tax... obviously ridiculous. No way to enforce such a global law.

He should have just argued for a net worth tax on it's own, not on a global level. No wonder everyone ignored that chapter.

Regardless, a net worth tax is easily the most fair way to tax the rich.

Post: #58

(05-05-2014 11:59 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

(05-04-2014 10:06 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  Maybe we should be talking more about why there are higher taxes on people's labor vs. returns on capital and whether or not that is a just arrangement.

Samseau, Piketty did mention a wealth/ net worth tax in one of the interviews I heard.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11749...apital-tax

He argues for a global net worth tax... obviously ridiculous. No way to enforce such a global law.

He should have just argued for a net worth tax on it's own, not on a global level. No wonder everyone ignored that chapter.

Regardless, a net worth tax is easily the most fair way to tax the rich.

Taking the criticism further, how would a net worth tax be implemented? Very few wealthy people own their assets directly. They are usually held in very complex structures in order to avoid any association with themselves, and therefore to separate their business from personal taxation. It's very difficult to legislate against that when family members are living in other jurisdictions.

Post: #59

(05-05-2014 12:29 PM)DaveR Wrote:  

(05-05-2014 11:59 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

(05-04-2014 10:06 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  Maybe we should be talking more about why there are higher taxes on people's labor vs. returns on capital and whether or not that is a just arrangement.

Samseau, Piketty did mention a wealth/ net worth tax in one of the interviews I heard.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11749...apital-tax

He argues for a global net worth tax... obviously ridiculous. No way to enforce such a global law.

He should have just argued for a net worth tax on it's own, not on a global level. No wonder everyone ignored that chapter.

Regardless, a net worth tax is easily the most fair way to tax the rich.

Taking the criticism further, how would a net worth tax be implemented? Very few wealthy people own their assets directly. They are usually held in very complex structures in order to avoid any association with themselves, and therefore to separate their business from personal taxation. It's very difficult to legislate against that when family members are living in other jurisdictions.

Whenever a nation enacts draconion tax revenue measures capital simply flees the country, which results in less tax revenue instead of more.

When capital flees the country it is often followed by the investor. Then there is also a brain drain, as well as a capital drain and a tax revenue drain.

It is all highly predictable. It is interesting how liberals do not believe in God or Satan, but they believe that their foolish policies will somehow defy the basic laws of economics and the obvious proposition that the vast majority of people will act (and react) in their own economic self-interest.

Post: #60

He sounds like the typical socialist. Government creates problems like economic inequality via inflation and corporate welfare. As a socialist, he blames what is left of the free market for this problem. Instead of advocating actual solutions, he just wants to give more power to the institutions that created the problem in the first place.

Post: #61

Considering most billionaires (including Buffet, Gates, the Rockefeller's through their various foundations) argue for many of the policy prescriptions in this book as a way to fight their competition or even would be competition from ever gaining as much resources as them, this thread should be titled, "The book the .001% want you to read."

Post: #62

(05-05-2014 11:59 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

(05-04-2014 10:06 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  Maybe we should be talking more about why there are higher taxes on people's labor vs. returns on capital and whether or not that is a just arrangement.

Samseau, Piketty did mention a wealth/ net worth tax in one of the interviews I heard.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11749...apital-tax

He argues for a global net worth tax... obviously ridiculous. No way to enforce such a global law.

He should have just argued for a net worth tax on it's own, not on a global level. No wonder everyone ignored that chapter.

Regardless, a net worth tax is easily the most fair way to tax the rich.

Another is the Henry George solution and tax land and natural resources only. We live in a society where people give up their right to grow and hunt their own food supply in the name of Smith'sian specialization.

It is therefore only fair that common goods such as air, water, oil, iron etc, belongs to the 'people' as a whole, not a few oligarchs, as these are valuables which did not originate from the effort of anyone. The same with land. Tax natural resources and land ownership used for business more than today and don't tax income or corporations at all.

Since most of the wealthy make most of their money from owning land and resources, this will also mostly only target the wealthy.

Georgism is a solution that almost anyone, left or right, can probably find some agreement on.

Land/resource rent is the way to go.

Post: #63

(05-06-2014 03:00 AM)berserk Wrote:  It is therefore only fair that common goods such as air, water, oil, iron etc, belongs to the 'people' as a whole, not a few oligarchs, as these are valuables which did not originate from the effort of anyone. The same with land. Tax natural resources and land ownership used for business more than today and don't tax income or corporations at all.

Definitely. That oil pumped itself out of the ground and that iron ore dug itself up. No human effort involved at all.

Likewise, that car that you're driving around, well that's made of iron, and there's oil in the fuel tank. Those things belong to the people, so of course you wouldn't mind if some people came and took them away.

Post: #64

(05-06-2014 03:00 AM)berserk Wrote:  

(05-05-2014 11:59 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

(05-04-2014 10:06 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  Maybe we should be talking more about why there are higher taxes on people's labor vs. returns on capital and whether or not that is a just arrangement.

Samseau, Piketty did mention a wealth/ net worth tax in one of the interviews I heard.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11749...apital-tax

He argues for a global net worth tax... obviously ridiculous. No way to enforce such a global law.

He should have just argued for a net worth tax on it's own, not on a global level. No wonder everyone ignored that chapter.

Regardless, a net worth tax is easily the most fair way to tax the rich.

Another is the Henry George solution and tax land and natural resources only. We live in a society where people give up their right to grow and hunt their own food supply in the name of Smith'sian specialization.

It is therefore only fair that common goods such as air, water, oil, iron etc, belongs to the 'people' as a whole, not a few oligarchs, as these are valuables which did not originate from the effort of anyone. The same with land. Tax natural resources and land ownership used for business more than today and don't tax income or corporations at all.

Since most of the wealthy make most of their money from owning land and resources, this will also mostly only target the wealthy.

Georgism is a solution that almost anyone, left or right, can probably find some agreement on.

Land/resource rent is the way to go.

I hate that solution, because it disincentivizes natural resource utilization. Why be a farmer if you're gonna get taxed to death? Better to let someone else do the work. Makes the world much more expensive in the long run.

Post: #65

(05-05-2014 02:12 PM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

(05-05-2014 12:29 PM)DaveR Wrote:  

(05-05-2014 11:59 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

(05-04-2014 10:06 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  Maybe we should be talking more about why there are higher taxes on people's labor vs. returns on capital and whether or not that is a just arrangement.

Samseau, Piketty did mention a wealth/ net worth tax in one of the interviews I heard.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11749...apital-tax

He argues for a global net worth tax... obviously ridiculous. No way to enforce such a global law.

He should have just argued for a net worth tax on it's own, not on a global level. No wonder everyone ignored that chapter.

Regardless, a net worth tax is easily the most fair way to tax the rich.

Taking the criticism further, how would a net worth tax be implemented? Very few wealthy people own their assets directly. They are usually held in very complex structures in order to avoid any association with themselves, and therefore to separate their business from personal taxation. It's very difficult to legislate against that when family members are living in other jurisdictions.

Whenever a nation enacts draconion tax revenue measures capital simply flees the country, which results in less tax revenue instead of more.

When capital flees the country it is often followed by the investor. Then there is also a brain drain, as well as a capital drain and a tax revenue drain.

It is all highly predictable. It is interesting how liberals do not believe in God or Satan, but they believe that their foolish policies will somehow defy the basic laws of economics and the obvious proposition that the vast majority of people will act (and react) in their own economic self-interest.

Yes I know this, but I'm not proposing draconian laws I'm proposing a 5% net worth tax.

I would argue that losing 40%-60% of your take home pay is far, far, far, more draconian.

Quote:Taking the criticism further, how would a net worth tax be implemented? Very few wealthy people own their assets directly. They are usually held in very complex structures in order to avoid any association with themselves, and therefore to separate their business from personal taxation. It's very difficult to legislate against that when family members are living in other jurisdictions.

It's easy to implement a net worth tax. People must already declare their assets. Use those values to base the tax. Get a third-party or two to double-check what people put down as their assets.

And since corporations are counted as persons they can be taxed with a net-worth tax too.

Post: #66

Another interview:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/201...as-piketty

Post: #67

(05-06-2014 08:56 PM)Samseau Wrote:  It's easy to implement a net worth tax. People must already declare their assets. Use those values to base the tax. Get a third-party or two to double-check what people put down as their assets.

And since corporations are counted as persons they can be taxed with a net-worth tax too.

What about foreign corporations? You would basically force companies to move their head offices offshore and discourage any foreign investment in the US.

The wealthy use offshore structures to avoid their wealth being taxed in the US or any other major jurisdiction. Not a lot can be done about that, because they are the very people who have the ability to move their wealth and families offshore.

Post: #68

piketty's suggestions are only effective if the world collaborates on a global taxation system. it won't happen.

Post: #69

(05-07-2014 03:17 PM)DaveR Wrote:  

(05-06-2014 08:56 PM)Samseau Wrote:  It's easy to implement a net worth tax. People must already declare their assets. Use those values to base the tax. Get a third-party or two to double-check what people put down as their assets.

And since corporations are counted as persons they can be taxed with a net-worth tax too.

What about foreign corporations? You would basically force companies to move their head offices offshore and discourage any foreign investment in the US.

The wealthy use offshore structures to avoid their wealth being taxed in the US or any other major jurisdiction. Not a lot can be done about that, because they are the very people who have the ability to move their wealth and families offshore.

Then you either ban them or put big tariffs on their products.

Post: #70

(05-07-2014 06:14 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Then you either ban them or put big tariffs on their products.

I agree that would stop the inequality in the US, but it wouldn't make people any wealthier. It would only drive away investment and wealth. To make it effective, you would need to implement the wealth tax globally.

Post: #71

(05-07-2014 06:41 PM)DaveR Wrote:  

(05-07-2014 06:14 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Then you either ban them or put big tariffs on their products.

I agree that would stop the inequality in the US, but it wouldn't make people any wealthier. It would only drive away investment and wealth. To make it effective, you would need to implement the wealth tax globally.

No it wouldn't. Only in the short term.

The simple fact is that if you force people to work for each other and not multinationals, then their skills will increase over time.

The problem with most economics is that it's too focused on the short term. Short term thinking doesn't create strong communities.

Strong communities are more important than strong economies. Strong communities can easily rape pillage and take from richer people and that's why historically it wasn't the richest nations that survived, but those who were most loyal to each other.

But I digress. A 5% net worth tax wouldn't scare off business. Most businesses would bite the bullet in order to gain access to the market, provided the market is attractive enough. In additional, such a small tax is probably a lot less than what most other countries offer.

Post: #72

(05-07-2014 07:02 PM)Samseau Wrote:  But I digress. A 5% net worth tax wouldn't scare off business. Most businesses would bite the bullet in order to gain access to the market, provided the market is attractive enough. In additional, such a small tax is probably a lot less than what most other countries offer.

So every company would be required to have 5% of their net worth in a liquid form to pay this tax. That's very different than keeping a % of the yearly profits. So you could lose a ton of money one year and still be hit with an enormous tax bill. Sucks to be employees of that company.

Would this tax be yearly or just when the politicians felt like it? This would be a very tempting tax to implement. Just blame the rich and take a % of their money when you want to. There is a tax like this currently in Colombia (3% a year). Where do you think most rich Colombians keep their money?

I expect a tax like this to be used in the US if the dollar loses reserve currency status and the US has to actually try to pay back some of it's debts. I don't think it would go very well.

I absolutely agree that income inequality is a real and important problem. The way the board of directors are run in public companies is appalling. Look to Europe for better corporate governance. In the US it's small group of people that are all on each others boards. The compensation committees are rubber stamps and outside consulting companies are a joke. The CxOs can pay themselves almost whatever the cash flow/borrowing power will allow. I would set limits on the amount of pay to executives of public companies as a multiple of average worker salary.

Post: #73

A side note to this debate.

I remember Obama giving a speech to some bankers, and reminding them that he was the only person in between them and the pitchforks.

lollllzzzz

Post: #74

(05-07-2014 06:14 PM)Samseau Wrote:  It's easy to implement a net worth tax. People must already declare their assets. Use those values to base the tax. Get a third-party or two to double-check what people put down as their assets.

And since corporations are counted as persons they can be taxed with a net-worth tax too.

Taxing corporations is more or less easy if you do not complicate the tax-code (which is currently highly complex exactly for that reason).

But a net wealth tax is for the 0,0001% incredibly difficult. The truly wealthy can and and do employ thousands of foundations, companies, banks & investment funds to hide their real wealth. Do you know that there are Royal company trusts stemming back over 200 years ago that give total anonymity to the owners?

Our economic system is so thoroughly fucked up that it would have to crash and be rebuilt or be practically dismantled honestly brick by brick. Nevermind such simple wealth calculations like with Gates or Buffett - those are peanuts. We cannot even find trillions (!!!!!) missing from US budget every few years, then add the missing trillions from the Fed, plenty of black-op budgets going into hundreds of billions. There is so much money simply missing that you could build cities on Mars for that cash. Meanwhile on earth most of humanity is going into "austerity mode". Such a scam!

Post: #75

Even aside from money moving off shore, any tax always gets passed on to consumers. Companies would just put their prices up. So, saying that companies would just take the hit to do business doesn't make sense. Most small businesses operate on a profit margin of ~5%. In the short term, there'd be a price war and it would be about whoever had the deepest pockets to avoid bleeding to death. Tons of small businesses would go to the wall, and guess who that would leave? Big businesses. Wealth would be even more concentrated and they could then jack up their prices and gouge everyone even more.

As to people building strong communities, I agree, but although everyone always complains about jobs moving off shore, how many of them actually buy locally produced products. If people really cared about strong local communities, they'd have strong local communities. It's all talk. It's not just bankers, corporations or politicians who are corrupt. It's the entire culture.

Likewise, as for corporate governance, this is another issue that people love to complain about, but why? Here's the simple solution: don't own stock in companies that have corporate governance you don't like. Make sure the directors and officers have skin in the game, make sure they get rewarded only for positive performance (and not just in the short term). If they don't meet such standards, then don't invest with/in them.