Art Laffer - wrong

[Craig234]

Then tell me, how does one non-physically create wealth? Create; not transfer or leverage position for creators of wealth.

You can find wealth; i.e., Love. But to create wealth with no labor? Good luck finding an example.

There is a key role some people play in wealth creation with others' labor. A popular example today is Steve Jobs leading Apple to do a lot more than was/likely would be with another leader. Warren Buffet can help make industries thrive with his use of capital, which can be inspired allocation.

The thing is that the right wing can't tell the difference between an economy that works for everyone, where these things are appropriately rewarded and the economy is productive, from a dysfunctional plutocracy where a few have far too much wealth and power serving their own interests and greatly harming the public at large.

To them, every robber baron manipulating the system is Steve Jobs the wonderful.

Liberals want the effective economy with unequal rewards. They aren't blind fools who want plutocracy. Admittedly, the left has had its excesses. In the light of monsters who abused capital to create tyranny, they've sometimes erred too much on the side of the state acting for the people to do a better job.

But again, the right can't tell the difference between the state playing its proper role at setting the rules to benefit society and limit plutocracy, and the height of the USSR or Mao's economic disasters. They're ignorant ideologues (I use 'idiotlogues') with zero ears and three mouths. They're blabbering while Rome reburns.

 

[matt0611]

Then tell me, how does one non-physically create wealth? Create; not transfer or leverage position for creators of wealth.

You can find wealth; i.e., Love. But to create wealth with no labor? Good luck finding an example.

Well do you consider organizing a company to create a product that people buy, wealth?

When you said physically I thought you meant physically assembling the products, my mistake.

Edit: NVM, craig basically explained what I was going to say.

 

[DominionSeraph]

There is a key role some people play in wealth creation with others' labor. A popular example today is Steve Jobs leading Apple to do a lot more that is was/likely would be with another leader. Warren Buffet can help make industries thrive with his use of capital, which can be inspired allocation.

Indeed, managerial labor can increase the efficiency of the producer beyond what his overhead costs. (Of course management tends to leverage its power to gain more skim which can be hidden in a growth in market/market share, leaving the aforementioned stagnant worker wages even as their output improves, reaching points where management is not worth the cost, which is only seen when growth stops and the system collapses with the rich owners/managers laughing all the way to the bank.)

And capital investment is needed, so skim is necessary.

The thing is that the right wing can't tell the difference between an economy that works for everyone, where these things are appropriately rewarded and the economy is productive, from a dysfunctional plutocracy where a few have far too much wealth and power serving their own interests and greatly harming the public at large.

To them, every robber baron manipulating the system is Steve Jobs the wonderful.

Exactly.

 

[Steeplerot]

He is often idle in comparison to his workers once he reaches his position of power (sometimes at birth - imagine that! Hooray for gutting the estate tax!). Idle wealth (risked or not) is not earned wealth in nearly the same manner as wealth earned by those risking time and direct labor (even their own health). The American working man/woman has gotten the shaft for the good part of the last thirty years because of thinking like this.

The reality that conservatives cannot handle is that the vast majority of these folks did not earn their money like they sit around and daydream about happening. Most rich inherit it and a very few get lucky with market changes being in the right place at the right time.

The whole conservative mindset displayed here is another example of the carrot and stick hung over their head by the rich to keep the workers divided and compliment to the riches needs, not their own.

Reminds me of socially awkward children defending "the cool kids club" even though they will never be even considered by said group in reality no matter how much of a toady they become much to the amusement of the "cool kids".

It is this willfully self-destructive nepotist thinking that kept Feudal Monarchist societies elites fat and wealthy living off the backs of their serfs for centuries. And once again the reactionaries are all about going back to those great times of the rich being worshiped as a master race thanks to the lottery of genetics.

1 step forward, 2 steps back.

 

[matt0611]

The reality that conservatives cannot handle is that the vast majority of these folks did not earn their money like they sit around and daydream about happening. Most rich inherit it and a very few get lucky with market changes being in the right place at the right time.

The whole conservative mindset displayed here is another example of the carrot and stick hung over their head by the rich to keep the workers divided and compliment to the riches needs, not their own.

Reminds me of socially awkward children defending "the cool kids club" even though they will never be even considered by said group in reality no matter how much of a toady they become much to the amusement of the "cool kids".

As long as the rich get their money because people voluntarily give it to them (not by force or government decree) I don't have a problem with it. If you despise them so much you don't have to give them your money, at least you have that.

 

[Craig234]

As long as the rich get their money because people voluntarily give it to them I don't have a problem with it. Stop giving them your money if you hate them so much.

That's really fallacious. It's like saying to a Soviet citizen critical of the government, 'if you dislike them so much, stop participating and starve'.

The rich can sometimes do fine things, and they can sometimes be 'robber barons', and similarly to my previous post, it seems you can't tell the difference.

Any criticism gets the 'if you don't like it, shut up and don't participate' response, which is ridiculous, because that's the system we have, and it can be needed to participate.

Back when people could work 16 hour days next to their 10 year old child in an unsafe factory to pay for their shanty's rent, you could say the same thing.

If you 'voluntarily' work for the factory instead of starve, it must be just fine.

No, it's not. You trying to shut down discussion of problems with that simplistic attack is not helpful.

You can buy the affordable item, and still say we need reform of the CEO's corrupt pay committee, of the Chinese polluting factory that replace an American one, etc.

That's why we have democracy, so the most rich and powerful can't leverage their power to an extreme over the people.

That's how our country started - England milking the colonies to pay for its European wars, and needing to repress people to prevent popular uprising. Under 'the system', the people could do nothing about it, but with democracy, they had more say - but even democracy is corrupted when the candidates need millions from the rich to win elections.

 

[Steeplerot]

As long as the rich get their money because people voluntarily give it to them (not by force or government decree) I don't have a problem with it. If you despise them so much you don't have to give them your money, at least you have that.

You guys seem to be under some assumption that anyone "hates" the rich this is another tactic by corporate media to frame the issue as jealousy instead of actually listening to others points.

I am all for someone working hard to do well, but the issue you conservatives seem to miss, is that
if you let the rich run amok they always shoot themselves in the foot for wealth accumulation, this is their choice as it is their monies. BUT, (and this is where the conservative ideaology falls apart in reality) it also screws the rest of us. Which is why so many people dismiss conservationism ideology as immature thinking or at best wishful thinking for the elites own interests.

Responsible regulation, oversight and common-sense road rules for capitalism are the moderate solution that has and continues to work worldwide for almost a century. Conservatism in the USA is a reactionary pipedream pimped by the US elites, which is why you guys find yourselves isolated from the rest of the world in when it comes to politics.

Capitalism is it's own worst enemy already, there is no need to "hate" fellow people regardless if they got lucky winning the genetic lottery and have the resulting bank account or not.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Well do you consider organizing a company to create a product that people buy, wealth?

I will grant that the idea for a company has value. However it is currently assigned great value through the system of property rights which allow the capital investors to leverage as much profit out of the workers as possible in perpetuity.

Should an idea create a perpetual leisure class living off the backs of the middle class just because their great-great-granddaddies got there first? I don't think so.

I am quite in favor of an estate tax that returns all wealth but what a man can have reasonably accumulated (not amount earned, but earnings remaining after costs) by his own direct actions. So, something along the lines of 100% tax rate with the first $1 million exempt.
That a man skimmed $10 billion and invested it into more wealth-skimming systems should not set the workers up to be perpetually maximally skimmed.

 

[matt0611]

That's really fallacious. It's like saying to a Soviet citizen critical of the government, 'if you dislike them so much, stop participating and starve'.

The rich can sometimes do fine things, and they can sometimes be 'robber barons', and similarly to my previous post, it seems you can't tell the difference.

Any criticism gets the 'if you don't like it, shut up and don't participate' response, which is ridiculous, because that's the system we have, and it can be needed to participate.

Back when people could work 16 hour days next to their 10 year old child in an unsafe factory to pay for their shanty's rent, you could say the same thing.

If you 'voluntarily' work for the factory instead of starve, it must be just fine.

No, it's not. You trying to shut down discussion of problems with that simplistic attack is not helpful.

You can buy the affordable item, and still say we need reform of the CEO's corrupt pay committee, of the Chinese polluting factory that replace an American one, etc.

That's why we have democracy, so the most rich and powerful can't leverage their power to an extreme over the people.

That's how our country started - England milking the colonies to pay for its European wars, and needing to repress people to prevent popular uprising. Under 'the system', the people could do nothing about it, but with democracy, they had more say - but even democracy is corrupted when the candidates need millions from the rich to win elections.

I'm not trying to shut down discussion of it by saying that, just pointing it out. I'm not saying just shut up and deal with it. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that.

Why do you think people can work less hours now? Capitalism and capital, we're more productive than we were, so we can work less and earn more money because of the capital that is available to us.

Why do you think children had to work? Because their parents did not produce enough to support them, the children had to produce too if they wanted to avoid starvation.

Now food is so cheap because of the capital that we have and people produce so much more that its not nearly as much as a problem.

Pollution is a separate matter that I would consider a good use of government intervention.

 

[DominionSeraph]

As long as the rich get their money because people voluntarily give it to them (not by force or government decree) I don't have a problem with it. If you despise them so much you don't have to give them your money, at least you have that.

The system is enforced by the government. Unionizing only gives a limited degree of power over the property owner, and on the consumer end the market serves to limit choice.
And if nobody buys, everybody but the producers of the basics is out of a job. Everybody loses if nobody buys, for with no demand, nobody works to create a supply.

The system is not as free as your naivete makes it out to be.

 

[matt0611]

The system is enforced by the government. Unionizing only gives a limited degree of power over the property owner, and on the consumer end the market serves to limit choice.
And if nobody buys, everybody but the producers of the basics is out of a job. Everybody loses if nobody buys, for with no demand, nobody works to create a supply.

The system is not as free as your naivete makes it out to be.

Well if people are not demanding anything than people don't need to work, theres no reason for it, it would be pointless lol, so that is true.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Why do you think people can work less hours now? Capitalism and capital, we're more productive than we were, so we can work less and earn more money because of the capital that is available to us.

Why do you think children had to work? Because their parents did not produce enough to support them, the children had to produce too if they wanted to avoid starvation.

Now food is so cheap because of the capital that we have and people produce so much more that its not nearly as much as a problem.

The problem is that the system is FAR more imbalanced than it needs to be to keep progress. You work more hours for less just to make millionaires more millions which DON'T get reinvested. They skim so much that the middle class economy is held down.
And they do things that are to the detriment of the economy (like outsourcing) just to make a buck off of making someone else a buck poorer.

Again, skim is necessary; but skim to the point where the top 10% owns 73% of EVERYTHING?

 

[hal2kilo]

There is plenty of empirical evidence aside from plain old good common sense and logic that supports the Laffer Curve.

The problem is people like you think that money earned does not belong to the earner to belong with - that it's the property of the collective, and scaling down the tax rates is from the goodness of the government. That's why you use words like "give more to the rich" when it's really "steal less from the productive."

Yea, why use empirical facts when you can just use good old CS and anecdotes.

 

[Craig234]

I'm not trying to shut down discussion of it by saying that, just pointing it out. I'm not saying just shut up and deal with it. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that.

OK. I don't want to misunderstand you but you said:

Stop giving them your money if you hate them so much.

First, it's not about "hate". That's a right-wing straw man that tries to change the topic from the economic issues to an implied personal attack, "you just hate them."

Second, it is *not practical* to "stop giving them money". In the Soviet system, you bought from the government. In the Nazi government, you bought from merchants under Nazi rules, generating GDP for the Nazis. In our system, you buy from our corporations.

An extreme behavior would be to 'commit civil disobedience and go to jail'. Not exactly a practical alternative for supporting economic reform.

A lesser behavior is something like 'buy local, not Wal-Mart', but it's of limited impact.

'Stop giving them money' is not a practical answer nor a helpful answer to the issues. Regulatory reform is.

And these issues affect people who don't want to participate with those firms, too.

If one company is allowed to use child labor in Indonesia for cheap labor, or one airline is allowed to cut costs by lesser safety inspections, they can put competitors out of business. This can force companies who don't want to do something to act as bad as the worst company, to stay in business and compete with them. This is why good businesses WANT government regulation that prohibits bad behavior for everyone.

The effect of your 'stop giving them money' comment is to say that's the answer, now be quiet about other options, even if you didn't mean that. And it doesn't work.

Why do you think people can work less hours now? Capitalism and capital, we're more productive than we were, so we can work less and earn more money because of the capital that is available to us.

Why do you think children had to work? Because their parents did not produce enough to support them, the children had to produce too if they wanted to avoid starvation.

Now food is so cheap because of the capital that we have and people produce so much more that its not nearly as much as a problem.

That's part of the answer, but it's not the main answer. For the last 30 years, basically ALL of the economic growth after inflation has gone to the top 20%, and far more to the top part of the top 20% - for the first time in our history, since we've always had more distribution of the generated wealth than that.

Those things you list improved primarily because of government reform - to give more power to labor to organize, and direct regulation, e.g. minimum wage and overtime.

Because we are a richer society, it's easier to hide the impact of the return to robber-barn concentration of wealth; debt makes it even easier to hide.

But we have a very serious problem with concentration of wealth, to the point of a serious threat to our democracy, perhaps the greatest we have ever faced.

Pollution is a separate matter that I would consider a good use of government intervention.

It's not a 'separate matter' for the context I raised it, but good to hear we agree on that. And just 'not giving your money to the polluter' doesn't work to prevent it.