@alexlou09 ¨If you tax an individual (income tax), they have less money to spend on goods and services¨
Correct, but only upto a point. Once you reach a certain level of wealth, you can get what you want anyway,an extra few % wont necessarily increasing how much you spend. And certainly wouldn't increase your expenditure as much as the equipment reduction for a small business or person. Tax cuts for business make sense, but not for the richest 2% of people.
@twdarkflame said "Tax cuts for business make sense, but not for the richest 2% of people."
You are looking at the cart, and not the horse that pulls it. How do the majority of people acquire their wealth? If you massively increase taxes for the "rich," then you disincentivise them to attain riches, which usually means you defeat the incentive of them going into business or expanding their operations.
Besides, how do you define "rich" ? Most people of wealth keep it in assets.
Not all tax is the same. This is a huge oversimplification. The tax level for the richest 2% (aka the bush tax cuts) is the disputed factor in recent years - it is not the same as a general low tax rate, and it is certainly not proved to have a proportional positive effect compared to the 2.5trillion less revenue generated because of it. Taxs influence on encomys depends on what or who is being taxed. Context is everything.
Please tell this to the clueless Democrats and Liberals who think that taxing a certain segment of the population would be good. Liberals and Democrats are the two dumbest groups on the political spectrum. Death to them BOTH.
What we have now is not a Free Market, it is more properly called "Corporatism" or "crony capitalism."
Regulation is the means by which corporate interests protect themselves and stifle competition. I am sure you have heard of the 'revolving door'? When the regulators are the ones who stand to benefit, there is a hug conflict of interest and the regular people of the nation suffer the most.
@Jack95912 Your correct that corporate interests and (effective) government bribes result in poor or damaging regulation.
That doesnt mean that all regulation is bad in principle though - or that no regulation would be best. If I buy food, I want to know its safe. If I want into a elevator I want to know its safe. And if I put money into a bank, I want to know they arnt going to do dodgy trading pretending debts are worth more then they are.
@twdarkflame said "That doesnt mean that all regulation is bad...If I want into a elevator I want to know its safe...And if I put money into a bank, I want to know they arnt going to do dodgy trading..."
Agreed. Free market proponents simply recognize that non-governmental entities can provide this regulation best due to competition. The government and its regulators hold a monopoly, hence no incentive to provide the clearest and most accurate information to consumers.
@twdarkflame For example, there are already quite a few independent institutes and groups that check on the nutrition and other qualities of food. The consumer can look amongst varying study groups, as well as utilize user reviews (esp. easy with the internet) to determine which products are safest, and most cost effective.
As for elevators and the like, cooperatives and unions are a couple ways of ensuring aggreed-to professional standards for construction technique.
@twdarkflame Even disregarding those options, a construction outfit that makes shoddy elevators and gets people killed, is going to have people come after them in court, which should be incentive enough in a free market. With state-backed unionism and/or state agency protections however, a private citizen may have trouble suing and so regulation is less effective, once again owing to teh coercive power of the state being appropriated by "private" business.
@twdarkflame The best way to ensure your bank is not doing "dodgy trading pretending debts are worth more then they are" is to eliminate things like the Federal Reserve system.
The behavior you describe comes about because of the system of central banking which allows member banks to borrow money they don't have, and then invest poorly with impunity, safe in the knowledge that they are 'too big to fail.'
@twdarkflame Not to mention the insider trading that occurs, i.e. "consulting" they get from their "regulators" on the Fed Board and in Congress.
None of that is free market.
Another thing that leads to what you describe is fractional reserve banking, which would be less prevalent if the government did not engage in things like FDIC, or have laws actually saying that banks MUST lend a certain % of their reserve, or laws that prohibit banks from declining loans to certain entities.
@twdarkflame Things like credit unions would be ideally better suited to meet people's needs. As it stand, we do not have anything approaching what is called "free banking."
We have a govt. system that mandates big investment banks get monopolies, whilst also hamstring what credit unions can do with their members' capital. We even have laws that say certain types of financial cooperatives are outright ILLEGAL simply because they would provide a safer alternative to the big banks.
@asg102 said "Can anyone help me understand how taxing slows down an economy?"
Sure. The more I tax you, the less disposable income you have. The less disposable income, the less consumption you will perform in the market place. If you are a business owner, the less revenue you retain, the less there is to re-invest into your business: less chance you are going to hire a new employee, expand operations, or get to that deferred maintenance.
Yeah, we should definitely cut down on special interests, especially when it's private corporations lobbying for breaks from the government. Of course, what's suggested here is cutting spending on various health care, possibly public works like our road systems, you know, necessary things. If only private for-profit corporations had the money, they could be spending it on more yachts and jets, after all. Yeah, for-profit corporations are soooo efficient.
@debatablescientist Yeah for-profit crops are efficient. How many government run businesses are making money right now? How many are in the fortune 500? You anti business type don't really understand how economies work do you?
@lockdown260 You fail to grasp my point. To make a profit, you jack your prices up, thus making them higher than they need to be, and thus making goods cost more than they're worth. If government run businesses were making a lot of money (aka profiting), they'd be less efficient by definition. Profit is an overhead, and government is here to work on our behalf and help fix our problems, not profit off of us.
@debatablescientist That's exactly why I said you don't understand economies well. Anyone who took econ 101 knows that profits aren't overhead. They are the difference between revenue & cost. Jacking you prices (which ideally equals your marginal cost,i.e cost per unit made) up w/o any good reason causes your demand to drop and your profits to fall (kinda like when the government raises taxes). Also regardless of motive the free market has done a lot more for people than the government has.
@lockdown260 Profits are overhead, though, even if you don't call them as such. Consumers pay more than what things are worth, due to the profit motive, which acts (from the consumer's point of view) as an overhead. Sure, they can't jack it up TOO much most of the time, but it's still up.
"the free market has done a lot more for people than the government has"
Like...sweat shops? BP? Outsourcing? Without proper regulations by the government, free markets do a lot of harm.
@debatablescientist With sweat shops and outsourcing everybody wins. In countries that have sweatshops they pay 2-3 times the national average income. With outsourcing other counties get jobs they wouldn't have otherwise & we get a cheaper product. The government nearly always has a negative effect on economies( ever heard of communism?). Also freer markets are positively correlated with better economies & higher standards of living. More goverment = more problems. That's a FACT.
@lockdown260 *facepalm* You bought into that sweatshop video, eh? I believe he mentioned the sweatshop-type situations we had here in the U.S., too, which we got past by using the government to enforce proper working conditions and pay. With the free markets back then, people were treated like dirt, until we got government to step in and stop it. Also, what are you talking about when you mention communism? You're not talking about China or Russia, are you?
@debatablescientist Don't face palm is you don't have facts to prove me wrong. We got past sweat shops when other more profitable jobs became available. Actually every communist nation in practice is what I'm talking about.. Today's China may have a communist party but in practice they aren't communist. Neither their government nor their people own most of the means of production. And rather than having uniform poverty parts of their population actually make money.
@lockdown260 I've found them skewed and lacking in context when I've looked at them. Every single set of data on this channel is spun in just such a way as to make the people spouting them seem credible. Furthermore, I like how you simply ignore history, as if it never happened. Of course, I suppose if you don't want to discuss any longer, have a nice day.
@debatablescientist So in other words when you find data that goes against your beliefs you ignore it. You are the only who ignores fact not me. If you think that all it takes to make the world better is a few laws you are kidding yourself.
@lockdown260 Ah, gotta love when people project. The graphs and data on here is cherry picked and lacking context. This channel, and seemingly you, deny history and what we have done through the government in the past. Government can act as a voice for the people, if we do it right. Free markets will never act as a voice for the people. What we need aren't ~just~ a few laws. We need a large social movement that will leverage the government for the good of the people.
@debatablescientist Bullcrap. You can't even point a data point that supports your opinion while free markets have thousands of them. Every time we look at the actually order of events, whether it be poverty, food safety, the environment, the economy, the data (you know actual information) says things tend to get better w/o the governments help. You are in no position to say what's "good for the people" when marxist style governance has killed many economies & people.
@lockdown260 Laughable. Have you seen Norway lately? It has higher GDP per capita than the U.S., much lower rates of crime, poverty, and unemployment (3% last I heard), and it could easily be called a socialist welfare state. Its public sector is huge. "The country maintains a Nordic welfare model with universal health care, subsidized higher education, and a comprehensive social security system." Norway has us beat hands down, so you don't get to call BS. I do.
@lockdown260 Sorry for the slow reply. I've been a bit too busy the past few days. In any case, I'll reply more fully to these skewed videos you've posted when I have the chance (possibly with a video), but enjoy these in the meantime. The people aren't just some random charismatic speakers, but actually have degrees and have held respectable jobs that deal with the economy. Of course, they aren't short, 10 minute clips for the attention impaired.
@debatablescientist How many people does Norway have? How big is Norway? The Norway nation is not a supoer power and its GDP is not like that of the U.S. So you lose there.
@debatablescientist It's called the Liberty Movement. Only thing is, Free Markets are part of the equation.
Free Markets are people freely associating and mutually exchanging goods and services for their labor. A government that intervenes in this free exchange and parasitically saps it is only aggrandizing itself at the expense of the people. Also, if people at this point still think Socialism has anything to offer, then I think that represents a MAJOR denial of history...seriously.
@Jack95912 What kind of liberty do you get when the people with the most money get to run everything? I suppose THEY would get plenty of liberty here in the U.S., but not anyone in the middle or bottom.
Free markets have to be regulated. Without it, unfair and immoral practices reign. Apparently you haven't looked into history much, have you? Furthermore, which truly socialistic society are you talking about? Hopefully not the shams of Russia and China.
@debatablescientist In the U.S., we have a corporatist system where big business has co-opted the state apparatus to form Protectionism for elites.
This is why you have Big Pharma and Insurance company lobbyists literally writing the Obamacare legislation. It is why General Electric paid no tax, yet the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate IN THE WORLD.
You are the one who needs to look into history. More of the same will not bring you liberty. But a REAL free market could.
@Jack95912 Oh, of course. We do have Protectionism for the wealthy. Not only do they have the money to do what they want normally, but they've co-opted the government, as you say, which has made it worse.
We definitely need to stop the lobbying by big corporations, or even lobbying in general. Perhaps if it was only votes that counted, the government would do what was right for the people, rather than the interests of the incredibly rich.
My Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics is published in October by W.W.Norton. Read an extract at: sites.google.com/site/wapshottkeyneshayek/
I highly disagree with not raising taxes. The rich have been getting by with nearly no taxes ever since Bush put in his stupid breaks. I wonder what was going on in his small brain of his.
Why should I pay more money because I make more money? Most people work their way up a company ladder. Does it take 5 years? sometimes. 10 years? usually. Very few people are given a $200,000 job right off the bat. My point is, people earn their money and it takes time, why punish their hard work?
@WhiteFleet08 Becuz the rich pay virtually NO TAXES. Why is that the poor people have to pay a fair amount of taxes when the rich have created outlandish loopholes that let them get by without any taxation whatsoever?
What do you mean they don't pay taxes? If you made over $200,000 in 2010, 33% of that ($66,000) was taken as income tax. We also have a consumption tax to account for too. If that person spends $10,000 on entertainment, food, etc. at a 7% tax rate, that's another $700. So at the end of the year, that person's net income was $133,300. I suggest we have a flat tax rate, heck I think we should rid the income tax.
@WhiteFleet08 That 33% is made up by the bonuses the rich get as well as tax benefits they receive from the government. Have you read up on GE? They paid NO TAXES last year becuz they have close to 300 lawyers exploiting every corporate loophole known to man.
GE paid estimated taxes for 2010. And your GE example is a company not an individual which makes me think that the tax code should be rewritten for businesses. If GE has 300 lawyers finding loopholes on income taxes every year, then why aren't our politicians knotting them up? I think because a company is taking advantage of loopholes, we shouldn't punish everyone who makes X amount of $. (BTW, I love other people's view point as understanding is knowledge.)
deficit is not the difference between how much we spend and how much we earn. Slave speak. It is the difference between how much THEY spend and how mucht THEY steal.
@IJUSTLOVETURTLES Beware of easy things, easy it not always correct. In this case he is assuming all tax is the same, which is a huge oversimplification.
@alexlou09 ¨If you tax an individual (income tax), they have less money to spend on goods and services¨
Correct, but only upto a point. Once you reach a certain level of wealth, you can get what you want anyway,an extra few % wont necessarily increasing how much you spend. And certainly wouldn't increase your expenditure as much as the equipment reduction for a small business or person. Tax cuts for business make sense, but not for the richest 2% of people.
twdarkflame 1 month ago
@twdarkflame said "Tax cuts for business make sense, but not for the richest 2% of people."
You are looking at the cart, and not the horse that pulls it. How do the majority of people acquire their wealth? If you massively increase taxes for the "rich," then you disincentivise them to attain riches, which usually means you defeat the incentive of them going into business or expanding their operations.
Besides, how do you define "rich" ? Most people of wealth keep it in assets.
Jack95912 1 month ago
Not all tax is the same. This is a huge oversimplification. The tax level for the richest 2% (aka the bush tax cuts) is the disputed factor in recent years - it is not the same as a general low tax rate, and it is certainly not proved to have a proportional positive effect compared to the 2.5trillion less revenue generated because of it. Taxs influence on encomys depends on what or who is being taxed. Context is everything.
twdarkflame 1 month ago
Please tell this to the clueless Democrats and Liberals who think that taxing a certain segment of the population would be good. Liberals and Democrats are the two dumbest groups on the political spectrum. Death to them BOTH.
ARepublicanVictory 6 months ago
Obama should have taken some of this guys classes while at Harvard.
jme6141994 6 months ago
What about public education spending?
nickitheninja5 6 months ago
Now why cant we get this guy in the white house?
FreakyKing2 6 months ago
@FreakyKing2 He's not running but Ron Paul is. Pay more attention to him and then tell your friends to do the same.
jme6141994 6 months ago
@jme6141994 I'm one step ahead of you buddy :)
FreakyKing2 6 months ago
What we have now is not a Free Market, it is more properly called "Corporatism" or "crony capitalism."
Regulation is the means by which corporate interests protect themselves and stifle competition. I am sure you have heard of the 'revolving door'? When the regulators are the ones who stand to benefit, there is a hug conflict of interest and the regular people of the nation suffer the most.
Jack95912 6 months ago
@Jack95912 Your correct that corporate interests and (effective) government bribes result in poor or damaging regulation.
That doesnt mean that all regulation is bad in principle though - or that no regulation would be best. If I buy food, I want to know its safe. If I want into a elevator I want to know its safe. And if I put money into a bank, I want to know they arnt going to do dodgy trading pretending debts are worth more then they are.
twdarkflame 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@twdarkflame said "That doesnt mean that all regulation is bad...If I want into a elevator I want to know its safe...And if I put money into a bank, I want to know they arnt going to do dodgy trading..."
Agreed. Free market proponents simply recognize that non-governmental entities can provide this regulation best due to competition. The government and its regulators hold a monopoly, hence no incentive to provide the clearest and most accurate information to consumers.
Jack95912 1 month ago
@twdarkflame For example, there are already quite a few independent institutes and groups that check on the nutrition and other qualities of food. The consumer can look amongst varying study groups, as well as utilize user reviews (esp. easy with the internet) to determine which products are safest, and most cost effective.
As for elevators and the like, cooperatives and unions are a couple ways of ensuring aggreed-to professional standards for construction technique.
Jack95912 1 month ago
@twdarkflame Even disregarding those options, a construction outfit that makes shoddy elevators and gets people killed, is going to have people come after them in court, which should be incentive enough in a free market. With state-backed unionism and/or state agency protections however, a private citizen may have trouble suing and so regulation is less effective, once again owing to teh coercive power of the state being appropriated by "private" business.
Jack95912 1 month ago
@twdarkflame The best way to ensure your bank is not doing "dodgy trading pretending debts are worth more then they are" is to eliminate things like the Federal Reserve system.
The behavior you describe comes about because of the system of central banking which allows member banks to borrow money they don't have, and then invest poorly with impunity, safe in the knowledge that they are 'too big to fail.'
Jack95912 1 month ago
@twdarkflame Not to mention the insider trading that occurs, i.e. "consulting" they get from their "regulators" on the Fed Board and in Congress.
None of that is free market.
Another thing that leads to what you describe is fractional reserve banking, which would be less prevalent if the government did not engage in things like FDIC, or have laws actually saying that banks MUST lend a certain % of their reserve, or laws that prohibit banks from declining loans to certain entities.
Jack95912 1 month ago
@twdarkflame Things like credit unions would be ideally better suited to meet people's needs. As it stand, we do not have anything approaching what is called "free banking."
We have a govt. system that mandates big investment banks get monopolies, whilst also hamstring what credit unions can do with their members' capital. We even have laws that say certain types of financial cooperatives are outright ILLEGAL simply because they would provide a safer alternative to the big banks.
Jack95912 1 month ago
@twdarkflame And then of course, we have the Government Sponsored Entities, like Fannie and Freddie.
We all know what happened with that.
Jack95912 1 month ago
Can anyone help me understand how taxing slows down an economy?
asg102 6 months ago
@asg102: The youtube video found here may help: youtube.com /watch?v=Zo0h_AR_lJM&feature=player_embedded
LearnLiberty 6 months ago
@LearnLiberty That's about stimulus spending, not taxation.
debatablescientist 6 months ago
Comment removed
calculon000 6 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@LearnLiberty He asked about taxation and it's effect on economic activity, and you link him to a video about the effectiveness of stimulus spending?
calculon000 6 months ago
@asg102 If I take more from your paycheck, you have less to spend on the things you want and need. Was that clear enough?
Jack95912 6 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@asg102 said "Can anyone help me understand how taxing slows down an economy?"
Sure. The more I tax you, the less disposable income you have. The less disposable income, the less consumption you will perform in the market place. If you are a business owner, the less revenue you retain, the less there is to re-invest into your business: less chance you are going to hire a new employee, expand operations, or get to that deferred maintenance.
Jack95912 1 month ago
Yeah, we should definitely cut down on special interests, especially when it's private corporations lobbying for breaks from the government. Of course, what's suggested here is cutting spending on various health care, possibly public works like our road systems, you know, necessary things. If only private for-profit corporations had the money, they could be spending it on more yachts and jets, after all. Yeah, for-profit corporations are soooo efficient.
debatablescientist 7 months ago
@debatablescientist Yeah for-profit crops are efficient. How many government run businesses are making money right now? How many are in the fortune 500? You anti business type don't really understand how economies work do you?
lockdown260 6 months ago
@lockdown260 You fail to grasp my point. To make a profit, you jack your prices up, thus making them higher than they need to be, and thus making goods cost more than they're worth. If government run businesses were making a lot of money (aka profiting), they'd be less efficient by definition. Profit is an overhead, and government is here to work on our behalf and help fix our problems, not profit off of us.
debatablescientist 6 months ago
Comment removed
lockdown260 6 months ago
@debatablescientist That's exactly why I said you don't understand economies well. Anyone who took econ 101 knows that profits aren't overhead. They are the difference between revenue & cost. Jacking you prices (which ideally equals your marginal cost,i.e cost per unit made) up w/o any good reason causes your demand to drop and your profits to fall (kinda like when the government raises taxes). Also regardless of motive the free market has done a lot more for people than the government has.
lockdown260 6 months ago
@lockdown260 Profits are overhead, though, even if you don't call them as such. Consumers pay more than what things are worth, due to the profit motive, which acts (from the consumer's point of view) as an overhead. Sure, they can't jack it up TOO much most of the time, but it's still up.
"the free market has done a lot more for people than the government has"
Like...sweat shops? BP? Outsourcing? Without proper regulations by the government, free markets do a lot of harm.
debatablescientist 6 months ago
@debatablescientist With sweat shops and outsourcing everybody wins. In countries that have sweatshops they pay 2-3 times the national average income. With outsourcing other counties get jobs they wouldn't have otherwise & we get a cheaper product. The government nearly always has a negative effect on economies( ever heard of communism?). Also freer markets are positively correlated with better economies & higher standards of living. More goverment = more problems. That's a FACT.
lockdown260 6 months ago
@lockdown260 *facepalm* You bought into that sweatshop video, eh? I believe he mentioned the sweatshop-type situations we had here in the U.S., too, which we got past by using the government to enforce proper working conditions and pay. With the free markets back then, people were treated like dirt, until we got government to step in and stop it. Also, what are you talking about when you mention communism? You're not talking about China or Russia, are you?
debatablescientist 6 months ago
@debatablescientist Don't face palm is you don't have facts to prove me wrong. We got past sweat shops when other more profitable jobs became available. Actually every communist nation in practice is what I'm talking about.. Today's China may have a communist party but in practice they aren't communist. Neither their government nor their people own most of the means of production. And rather than having uniform poverty parts of their population actually make money.
lockdown260 6 months ago
@debatablescientist But by all means check my data points. You'll find them flawless.
lockdown260 6 months ago
@lockdown260 I've found them skewed and lacking in context when I've looked at them. Every single set of data on this channel is spun in just such a way as to make the people spouting them seem credible. Furthermore, I like how you simply ignore history, as if it never happened. Of course, I suppose if you don't want to discuss any longer, have a nice day.
debatablescientist 6 months ago
@debatablescientist So in other words when you find data that goes against your beliefs you ignore it. You are the only who ignores fact not me. If you think that all it takes to make the world better is a few laws you are kidding yourself.
lockdown260 6 months ago
@lockdown260 Ah, gotta love when people project. The graphs and data on here is cherry picked and lacking context. This channel, and seemingly you, deny history and what we have done through the government in the past. Government can act as a voice for the people, if we do it right. Free markets will never act as a voice for the people. What we need aren't ~just~ a few laws. We need a large social movement that will leverage the government for the good of the people.
debatablescientist 6 months ago
@debatablescientist Bullcrap. You can't even point a data point that supports your opinion while free markets have thousands of them. Every time we look at the actually order of events, whether it be poverty, food safety, the environment, the economy, the data (you know actual information) says things tend to get better w/o the governments help. You are in no position to say what's "good for the people" when marxist style governance has killed many economies & people.
lockdown260 6 months ago
@lockdown260 Laughable. Have you seen Norway lately? It has higher GDP per capita than the U.S., much lower rates of crime, poverty, and unemployment (3% last I heard), and it could easily be called a socialist welfare state. Its public sector is huge. "The country maintains a Nordic welfare model with universal health care, subsidized higher education, and a comprehensive social security system." Norway has us beat hands down, so you don't get to call BS. I do.
debatablescientist 6 months ago
@debatablescientist /watch?v=OkebmhTQN-4&feature=feedu
/watch?v=nuv0K8H8ILM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
I'm done.
lockdown260 6 months ago
@lockdown260 Sorry for the slow reply. I've been a bit too busy the past few days. In any case, I'll reply more fully to these skewed videos you've posted when I have the chance (possibly with a video), but enjoy these in the meantime. The people aren't just some random charismatic speakers, but actually have degrees and have held respectable jobs that deal with the economy. Of course, they aren't short, 10 minute clips for the attention impaired.
/watch?v=QCu-XnVxhfk
/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
debatablescientist 6 months ago
@debatablescientist How many people does Norway have? How big is Norway? The Norway nation is not a supoer power and its GDP is not like that of the U.S. So you lose there.
ARepublicanVictory 6 months ago
@debatablescientist It's called the Liberty Movement. Only thing is, Free Markets are part of the equation.
Free Markets are people freely associating and mutually exchanging goods and services for their labor. A government that intervenes in this free exchange and parasitically saps it is only aggrandizing itself at the expense of the people. Also, if people at this point still think Socialism has anything to offer, then I think that represents a MAJOR denial of history...seriously.
Jack95912 6 months ago
@Jack95912 What kind of liberty do you get when the people with the most money get to run everything? I suppose THEY would get plenty of liberty here in the U.S., but not anyone in the middle or bottom.
Free markets have to be regulated. Without it, unfair and immoral practices reign. Apparently you haven't looked into history much, have you? Furthermore, which truly socialistic society are you talking about? Hopefully not the shams of Russia and China.
debatablescientist 6 months ago
@debatablescientist In the U.S., we have a corporatist system where big business has co-opted the state apparatus to form Protectionism for elites.
This is why you have Big Pharma and Insurance company lobbyists literally writing the Obamacare legislation. It is why General Electric paid no tax, yet the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate IN THE WORLD.
You are the one who needs to look into history. More of the same will not bring you liberty. But a REAL free market could.
Jack95912 6 months ago
@Jack95912 Oh, of course. We do have Protectionism for the wealthy. Not only do they have the money to do what they want normally, but they've co-opted the government, as you say, which has made it worse.
We definitely need to stop the lobbying by big corporations, or even lobbying in general. Perhaps if it was only votes that counted, the government would do what was right for the people, rather than the interests of the incredibly rich.
We should take a page from Scandinavia.
debatablescientist 6 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
My Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics is published in October by W.W.Norton. Read an extract at: sites.google.com/site/wapshottkeyneshayek/
Nicholas Wapshott
nhwapshott 8 months ago
I highly disagree with not raising taxes. The rich have been getting by with nearly no taxes ever since Bush put in his stupid breaks. I wonder what was going on in his small brain of his.
guydudeasian 8 months ago
@guydudeasian
Why should I pay more money because I make more money? Most people work their way up a company ladder. Does it take 5 years? sometimes. 10 years? usually. Very few people are given a $200,000 job right off the bat. My point is, people earn their money and it takes time, why punish their hard work?
WhiteFleet08 8 months ago
@WhiteFleet08 Becuz the rich pay virtually NO TAXES. Why is that the poor people have to pay a fair amount of taxes when the rich have created outlandish loopholes that let them get by without any taxation whatsoever?
guydudeasian 8 months ago
@guydudeasian
What do you mean they don't pay taxes? If you made over $200,000 in 2010, 33% of that ($66,000) was taken as income tax. We also have a consumption tax to account for too. If that person spends $10,000 on entertainment, food, etc. at a 7% tax rate, that's another $700. So at the end of the year, that person's net income was $133,300. I suggest we have a flat tax rate, heck I think we should rid the income tax.
WhiteFleet08 8 months ago
@WhiteFleet08 That 33% is made up by the bonuses the rich get as well as tax benefits they receive from the government. Have you read up on GE? They paid NO TAXES last year becuz they have close to 300 lawyers exploiting every corporate loophole known to man.
guydudeasian 8 months ago
@guydudeasian
GE paid estimated taxes for 2010. And your GE example is a company not an individual which makes me think that the tax code should be rewritten for businesses. If GE has 300 lawyers finding loopholes on income taxes every year, then why aren't our politicians knotting them up? I think because a company is taking advantage of loopholes, we shouldn't punish everyone who makes X amount of $. (BTW, I love other people's view point as understanding is knowledge.)
WhiteFleet08 8 months ago
deficit is not the difference between how much we spend and how much we earn. Slave speak. It is the difference between how much THEY spend and how mucht THEY steal.
modelmark 9 months ago
Wow, a Harvard guy critical of D.C? He must be the only one there.
Joe11Blue 9 months ago 15
Good stuff!
Jotto999 9 months ago
I like Dr. Miron. He doesn't sugar-coat anything he says so it's all really easy to follow.
IJUSTLOVETURTLES 9 months ago 8
@IJUSTLOVETURTLES Beware of easy things, easy it not always correct. In this case he is assuming all tax is the same, which is a huge oversimplification.
twdarkflame 1 month ago