Is $900Billion new debt fiscally responsible?

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SparkyJJO

Lifer
May 16, 2002
13,357
7
81
I agree except the bolded part. I think to really make a difference some 'important stuff' will have to be cut also.

And that's a possibility. So the first step would be to do an 1st step overhaul and toss out all the excess, wasteful spending, see how much of an impact that has, then start delving into the next, least important item. Trim the fat first, check where the money is going and stop up leaks.

Of course, the definition of "important" will widely vary depending on who's looking at it, I'm sure. Some may see federal support of alien discovery very important, while others couldn't care less about it (not saying whether there is such a project or not, just a random example pulled out of thin air).
 

Carmen813

Diamond Member
May 18, 2007
3,189
0
76
They weren't cut.

Next year will be the same as this year. This year is the same as last year. last year is the same as the year before, and so for 10 years.

Congress's logic, which the progressives seem to buy into, is that forgoing a future tax increase is the same as spending. If that's true, we can announce we're going to spend $900 billion next year on, oh say, new bridges. Then we can decide not to, thereby saving $900 billion. See! We just paid for the so-called "tax cuts".

Fern

Q: Why weren't these tax cuts made permanent when they were created?
A: Because even many conservatives voted against them and it had to be passed via reconciliation, and eventually passed by Dick Cheney's tie breaking vote (at least with regards to the 03 cuts).
 

Carmen813

Diamond Member
May 18, 2007
3,189
0
76
Currently we are borrowing roughly 50 cents for every dollar we spend. If we can get back down to 5% or so unemployment that will help immensely (tax income plus fewer people to be supported), but we'll have to drastically cut spending to balance the budget that way. The other possibility is the progressive, European socialist path - simply raise taxes, decrease standard of living, and increase government to make the masses more or less equal. Smaller houses, less stuff, the majority riding public transportation. What we can't do is have such a relatively high level of spending and relatively low taxes, and if we increase taxes we can't enjoy such a high standard of living (which is currently financed via credit.) Either way, some "important stuff" will definitely have to be cut, sooner or later.

This "progressive" way is to remove wealth concentration from the upper classes, which for the most part sit on huge sums of money. By moving that from the upper class (and by this, I mean the top fraction of a %) to the middle class (i.e., more of the population) this money will move around and actually be spent, resulting in increased consumption, more jobs, and a higher quality of living for the middle class. Right now we have vast sums of money sitting around doing relatively little (in terms of the impact that money COULD have).

If "middle class" is supposed to refer to the peak on the bell curve in terms of overall population, than how can 80% of the population controlling 19% of wealth indicate that the middle class even really exists? The top 20% control 81% of wealth that exists in the U.S. Historically, if you study when empire's fail, this is the cause. We can either address it in a fair way or demonize those who even dare discuss it. For the record I am not for expanding more government entitlements.
 
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Carmen813

Diamond Member
May 18, 2007
3,189
0
76
Why the h3ll would interrupt this fight between progressives?

Never get in the way of your enemy when he's shooting himself in the foot.

They don't need a new argument. They've always said that you don't raise taxes in an economy like this. Heck, many Dem's even agree with that.

IDK about that. The way he campaigned in the '08 election was masterful.

maybe because I'm a political junkie and have been following this tax issue for a while, but it looks to me like the Dems, and this administration, have miscalculated and bungled this if the objective really was to raise taxes on the higher earners.

Even if they couldn't get 1 freakin RINO in the Senate (Collins, Snowe etc) to sign up for the increase, they could have gone the reconcilliation route. They did it for HC reform.

They way they played it, it ended up putting the pressure on Obama to raise taxes for everyone, or no one. And he folded (but did get unemployment benefits extended).

Look, if the Congressional Dems really don't want to extend tax cuts to everyone the answer is pretty damn obvious - don't deliver him a bill to sign that would do that. It's that frickin simple. They control both houses of Congress, and by a pretty wide margin too.

Edit: I'll take back what I said above about how all this makes Obama look. I wanna see how it plays out. Will the Dems give him the bill he's agreed to? Is Obama gonna fight with the Dems? Will he look better for it? IDK, and need to see what happens over the next week or so.

Fern

First off, let's admit that there is no economy where Republicans believe taxes must be raised. Their solution is to cut taxes, and when those policies fail, cut them even more. They fail to grasp how they are promoting the flow of wealth OUT of this country by continuing to concentrate wealth among a very small fraction of the population.

Republicans are saying nothing because they have nothing to say. Amazingly, very few of them have "claimed" victory. Some made some comments on the Sunday morning talk shows, but that is about it.

The news media is clamoring for a fight over taxes, because the media is never happier then when there is political controversy to babble about. At least until the next day when they can report on the latest sex scandal.
 

LegendKiller

Lifer
Mar 5, 2001
18,256
68
86
First off, let's admit that there is no economy where Republicans believe taxes must be raised. Their solution is to cut taxes, and when those policies fail, cut them even more. They fail to grasp how they are promoting the flow of wealth OUT of this country by continuing to concentrate wealth among a very small fraction of the population.

Republicans are saying nothing because they have nothing to say. Amazingly, very few of them have "claimed" victory. Some made some comments on the Sunday morning talk shows, but that is about it.

The news media is clamoring for a fight over taxes, because the media is never happier then when there is political controversy to babble about. At least until the next day when they can report on the latest sex scandal.

Very good points, 100% correct. Republicans only care about the wealth they can accumulate, fuck the country, fuck the people, fuck the future. It's all "me me me".
 

Carmen813

Diamond Member
May 18, 2007
3,189
0
76
Very good points, 100% correct. Republicans only care about the wealth they can accumulate, fuck the country, fuck the people, fuck the future. It's all "me me me".

I don't think Republicans motives are evil, but rather that that economic policy is flawed and not supported by fact.
 

LegendKiller

Lifer
Mar 5, 2001
18,256
68
86
I don't think Republicans motives are evil, but rather that that economic policy is flawed and not supported by fact.

I absolutely think their policies are evil. They have paraded Reaganomics for 30 years, only for the money to line the pockets of people who will get them re-elected, like the Koch brothers. Those same people spread the bullshit lie of Reaganomics, to the ruination of this country. Those lies, as you say, are not supported by a single fact. However, that doesn't stop abject morons like Spidey from continuing to spread the bullshit.
 

senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
126
Is $900B enough stimulus though, for 2 years? I think Obama should cut payroll taxes by another 2%.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
This "progressive" way is to remove wealth concentration from the upper classes, which for the most part sit on huge sums of money. By moving that from the upper class (and by this, I mean the top fraction of a %) to the middle class (i.e., more of the population) this money will move around and actually be spent, resulting in increased consumption, more jobs, and a higher quality of living for the middle class. Right now we have vast sums of money sitting around doing relatively little (in terms of the impact that money COULD have).

If "middle class" is supposed to refer to the peak on the bell curve in terms of overall population, than how can 80% of the population controlling 19% of wealth indicate that the middle class even really exists? The top 20% control 81% of wealth that exists in the U.S. Historically, if you study when empire's fail, this is the cause. We can either address it in a fair way or demonize those who even dare discuss it. For the record I am not for expanding more government entitlements.
Odd, but 20% owning 80% has been the case for a long, long time. Medieval Europe (at least France and England; Switzerland might have been better and in most nations wealth was even more concentrated) had that same ratio, and even ancient Rome was about the same.

Ever studied progress in civilization? When agriculture and/or other food gathering becomes successful enough, specialization begins. That excess wealth produced in food allows others to produce different kinds of wealth. That lifts societies from a subsistence economy to another level; as more wealth is created than is consumed, that wealth is loaned out to people who start new businesses, often manufacturing things not previously made at all, sometimes just manufacturing things more efficiently. If instead that concentration of wealth is artificially removed, then concentration by more capable individuals is replaced by increased consumption by all.

Now, where we can shape our societal rules to spread that wealth over a larger part of the population by creating more wealth, I'm all for it. The problem with the progressive ideology is fourfold. First, that it sees wealth concentration as inherently evil. No wealth concentration means no societal progress. Second, it empowers government as the arbiter of how wealth should be invested, spent, redistributed. Government isn't sentient; it depends on men to make its decisions. There's a very accurate canard that "None of us are as smart as all of us." By empowering government, a comparatively small number of bureaucrats needs must make the decisions that all of us, acting in the market, previously made. Just as almost no funds beat the index, almost no government-directed economy is ever going to match or surpass a free market economy in wealth creation.

Third, by empowering government as the arbiters of wealth distribution, progressives create a disincentive to wealth creation and innovation. If a person looks at a potential gain of $200,000 for a $100,000 investment, he can justify taking a moderate risk with that $100,000. If instead he knows government will take $180,000 of his $200,000 gain, it becomes much less attractive to risk his $100,000 since at best he'll increase it by 20% while at worst he'll lose it all. By such actions are progress and innovation thwarted, which is why highly taxed societies are not typically innovative societies. By decreasing the potential gains, you make most risks not worth taking.

Fourth, and probably worst, by empowering government to seize some portion of a person's wealth, for no better reason than he has it, and by empowering government to decide how much of a person's wealth it deserves, you undercut the very concept of freedom. Instead, you reduce us all to serfs, whose function in the world is to toil for government rather than for ourselves and our own.

Show me a method for increasing our society's wealth - but increasing it most strongly among the middle class or poor - and I'll be all for it. Show me a scheme for artificially redistributing the existing wealth and I'll likely argue that it will end us making our society less wealthy overall. That may suit progressives, but it does not suit me.
 

boomerang

Lifer
Jun 19, 2000
18,883
641
126
Odd, but 20% owning 80% has been the case for a long, long time. Medieval Europe (at least France and England; Switzerland might have been better and in most nations wealth was even more concentrated) had that same ratio, and even ancient Rome was about the same.

Ever studied progress in civilization? When agriculture and/or other food gathering becomes successful enough, specialization begins. That excess wealth produced in food allows others to produce different kinds of wealth. That lifts societies from a subsistence economy to another level; as more wealth is created than is consumed, that wealth is loaned out to people who start new businesses, often manufacturing things not previously made at all, sometimes just manufacturing things more efficiently. If instead that concentration of wealth is artificially removed, then concentration by more capable individuals is replaced by increased consumption by all.

Now, where we can shape our societal rules to spread that wealth over a larger part of the population by creating more wealth, I'm all for it. The problem with the progressive ideology is fourfold. First, that it sees wealth concentration as inherently evil. No wealth concentration means no societal progress. Second, it empowers government as the arbiter of how wealth should be invested, spent, redistributed. Government isn't sentient; it depends on men to make its decisions. There's a very accurate canard that "None of us are as smart as all of us." By empowering government, a comparatively small number of bureaucrats needs must make the decisions that all of us, acting in the market, previously made. Just as almost no funds beat the index, almost no government-directed economy is ever going to match or surpass a free market economy in wealth creation.

Third, by empowering government as the arbiters of wealth distribution, progressives create a disincentive to wealth creation and innovation. If a person looks at a potential gain of $200,000 for a $100,000 investment, he can justify taking a moderate risk with that $100,000. If instead he knows government will take $180,000 of his $200,000 gain, it becomes much less attractive to risk his $100,000 since at best he'll increase it by 20% while at worst he'll lose it all. By such actions are progress and innovation thwarted, which is why highly taxed societies are not typically innovative societies. By decreasing the potential gains, you make most risks not worth taking.

Fourth, and probably worst, by empowering government to seize some portion of a person's wealth, for no better reason than he has it, and by empowering government to decide how much of a person's wealth it deserves, you undercut the very concept of freedom. Instead, you reduce us all to serfs, whose function in the world is to toil for government rather than for ourselves and our own.

Show me a method for increasing our society's wealth - but increasing it most strongly among the middle class or poor - and I'll be all for it. Show me a scheme for artificially redistributing the existing wealth and I'll likely argue that it will end us making our society less wealthy overall. That may suit progressives, but it does not suit me.
Excellent, excellent post. :thumbsup: I hope someone besides myself read it and that they read it with an open mind.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,329
126
Oil companies are competing with each other, not the future

I worked in the oil field so I know a bit about the subject but evidently there are some folk here that know way more than I do. Those evul oil companies are buying up all the leases and drilling the holes but not producing the oil because it will be worth more in the future according to some. Those people also say its a good thing to keep it in the ground until it is more scarce. As a compromise I say let them pay rent and provide tons of jobs until that time comes AND the oil is ready to come out of the ground already.

If they are right then my plan is way better.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,329
126
A tax cut isn't spending. What could be done, which is the REASONABLE thing to do, is to decrease government spending by $900B to keep the deficit in check. The fact that the government can even afford to cut $900B in taxes is amazing to me. That means they are still spending TRILLIONS - most of which is just going down the drain in failed projects or into corrupt officials' pockets.

They didn't cut anywhere near $900B in taxes. Hell, that would be roughly over 1/3 of the Feds ENTIRE revenue in 2010. They are insane but they ain't that insane.

Unless you are talking about funny accounting in which case I will let you be. I still believe in that boring regular math, call me a math truther if you will. I am also a realist so that is why I am slightly leaning towards the "fuck it, lets just run the credit card up as high as they let us and then tell em to get bent" side.

You guys that think we have both the ability AND the will to not only balance the budget but pay down the debt as well crack me up.
 

yllus

Elite Member & Lifer
Aug 20, 2000
20,577
432
126
Spidey, I know I say this a lot but I really want you to know that I mean it. You are extremely stupid.

I don't quite know why but reading this made me laugh for an entire minute.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
Is $900B enough stimulus though, for 2 years? I think Obama should cut payroll taxes by another 2%.

It's pretty big. And not Spideys 2% or even 4% which will be eaten up by $4 gas and $3 a head lettuce. But the NEW provision of writing off 100% of capital equipment is the real deal here.

The only problem is you can buy foreign stuff not keeping americans employed and still get same writeoff. But I think you may see some significant sales increases regardless.

Course all this does is pull forward buying into this year and from the out-years.... disaster to be continued but worse 2013+
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
I worked in the oil field so I know a bit about the subject but evidently there are some folk here that know way more than I do. Those evul oil companies are buying up all the leases and drilling the holes but not producing the oil because it will be worth more in the future according to some. Those people also say its a good thing to keep it in the ground until it is more scarce. As a compromise I say let them pay rent and provide tons of jobs until that time comes AND the oil is ready to come out of the ground already.

If they are right then my plan is way better.

What I have said, and no one else that I know of has, is that it's better for us as a nation to leave our oil in the ground until it's worth more.

Not better for oil companies. They are competing with each other to drill oil, and waiting puts them at risk of drilling less oil. Another risk is that a huge oil spill happens and drilling oil here gets completely banned in response to public opinion. Of course that didn't happen this time.
 
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senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
35,787
6,197
126
It's pretty big. And not Spideys 2% or even 4% which will be eaten up by $4 gas and $3 a head lettuce. But the NEW provision of writing off 100% of capital equipment is the real deal here.

The only problem is you can buy foreign stuff not keeping americans employed and still get same writeoff. But I think you may see some significant sales increases regardless.

Course all this does is pull forward buying into this year and from the out-years.... disaster to be continued but worse 2013+

I think Obama can put more stimulus in there. Maybe put a provision that says that unemployment bennies extend automatically as long as unemployment is over a certain %.
 

brencat

Platinum Member
Feb 26, 2007
2,170
3
76
Odd, but 20% owning 80% has been the case for a long, long time. Medieval Europe (at least France and England; Switzerland might have been better and in most nations wealth was even more concentrated) had that same ratio, and even ancient Rome was about the same.

Ever studied progress in civilization? When agriculture and/or other food gathering becomes successful enough, specialization begins. That excess wealth produced in food allows others to produce different kinds of wealth. That lifts societies from a subsistence economy to another level; as more wealth is created than is consumed, that wealth is loaned out to people who start new businesses, often manufacturing things not previously made at all, sometimes just manufacturing things more efficiently. If instead that concentration of wealth is artificially removed, then concentration by more capable individuals is replaced by increased consumption by all.

Now, where we can shape our societal rules to spread that wealth over a larger part of the population by creating more wealth, I'm all for it. The problem with the progressive ideology is fourfold. First, that it sees wealth concentration as inherently evil. No wealth concentration means no societal progress. Second, it empowers government as the arbiter of how wealth should be invested, spent, redistributed. Government isn't sentient; it depends on men to make its decisions. There's a very accurate canard that "None of us are as smart as all of us." By empowering government, a comparatively small number of bureaucrats needs must make the decisions that all of us, acting in the market, previously made. Just as almost no funds beat the index, almost no government-directed economy is ever going to match or surpass a free market economy in wealth creation.

Third, by empowering government as the arbiters of wealth distribution, progressives create a disincentive to wealth creation and innovation. If a person looks at a potential gain of $200,000 for a $100,000 investment, he can justify taking a moderate risk with that $100,000. If instead he knows government will take $180,000 of his $200,000 gain, it becomes much less attractive to risk his $100,000 since at best he'll increase it by 20% while at worst he'll lose it all. By such actions are progress and innovation thwarted, which is why highly taxed societies are not typically innovative societies. By decreasing the potential gains, you make most risks not worth taking.

Fourth, and probably worst, by empowering government to seize some portion of a person's wealth, for no better reason than he has it, and by empowering government to decide how much of a person's wealth it deserves, you undercut the very concept of freedom. Instead, you reduce us all to serfs, whose function in the world is to toil for government rather than for ourselves and our own.

Show me a method for increasing our society's wealth - but increasing it most strongly among the middle class or poor - and I'll be all for it. Show me a scheme for artificially redistributing the existing wealth and I'll likely argue that it will end us making our society less wealthy overall. That may suit progressives, but it does not suit me.

Nomination for post of the month, right here... :thumbsup:
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
24,205
10,865
136
I think its going to be real hard for republicans to honestly run on a platform of fiscal responsibility in the future. The democrats actually want to let the tax cut expire to help with the national debt and the republicans obviously don't care about debt.

Obama's a fool. Before the ink dries on this turkey, the Repugs are going to turn around and drive a knife in his back and claim that he's fiscally irresponsible. And guess why, because your basic American voter is an idiot.

I'm done with this politically nieve fool.

Of course the other idiot Reed help set this trap for him by not getting this shit straightened out before the last election.

Bernie Sanders for president.
 

brencat

Platinum Member
Feb 26, 2007
2,170
3
76
Very good points, 100% correct. Republicans only care about the wealth they can accumulate, fuck the country, fuck the people, fuck the future. It's all "me me me".

Sometimes I don't understand you Legend. You work on Wall St, same as me, yet you seem to be fighting a guilty conscience on some level. Based on your past posts, you also seem to have earned your way to Wall St, same as me.

So why would you be okay with the upper middle class, who would be most affected if the Bush tax cuts expired, paying more taxes to subsidize the top 0.05% that are paid or have the option to be paid mostly in stock that will continue to be taxed at the lower capital gains rates and thus largely unaffected by any tax hike?

My view is that I'd rather have no tax increase on anyone unless we're willing to discuss completely phasing out the 15% capital gains rate beyond a certain income level ($10 mil?)...to be sure those paid in stock and those living off investments pay a higher effective tax - maybe something closer to 28% like it used to be.

I personally would be much more willing to let the Bush tax cuts expire and see my own bills rise if I could also be sure the top 0.05% would be impacted significantly as well. Otherwise, all this talk about breaking the wealth concentration at the top is meaningless to me because it's obvious neither party is looking in the proper place.
 

LegendKiller

Lifer
Mar 5, 2001
18,256
68
86
Sometimes I don't understand you Legend. You work on Wall St, same as me, yet you seem to be fighting a guilty conscience on some level. Based on your past posts, you also seem to have earned your way to Wall St, same as me.

So why would you be okay with the upper middle class, who would be most affected if the Bush tax cuts expired, paying more taxes to subsidize the top 0.05% that are paid or have the option to be paid mostly in stock that will continue to be taxed at the lower capital gains rates and thus largely unaffected by any tax hike?

My view is that I'd rather have no tax increase on anyone unless we're willing to discuss completely phasing out the 15% capital gains rate beyond a certain income level ($10 mil?)...to be sure those paid in stock and those living off investments pay a higher effective tax - maybe something closer to 28% like it used to be.

I personally would be much more willing to let the Bush tax cuts expire and see my own bills rise if I could also be sure the top 0.05% would be impacted significantly as well. Otherwise, all this talk about breaking the wealth concentration at the top is meaningless to me because it's obvious neither party is looking in the proper place.

If I had my way the top marginal income tax brackets would be 50-60% and capital gains taxes would match those on a short-term basis but slowly decline on a long-term basis.

I did get here the hard way. I do have a conscience, which is why I cannot stand aside and let the current situation continue. I recognize that even without higher top marginal tax brackets something needs to be done.

Part of the reason why I talk the way I do is because I grew up working class in the midwest. I see how much I make and I recognize that marginally higher taxes really would not have an effect on my wealth accumulation or spending habits. If I am on such a lower cusp of wealth, then I can see how it effects the higher brackets.

This is why I have a hard time accepting that somebody making 300,000 would spend so much less when their tax bill would go up less than $200/mo. Keeping that in mind, in relation to how much they make, I find it difficult to agree that somebody making more than 25,000/mo, ~16,000 takehome after payroll tax dropoffs at 108k, would be all that worried about $200/mo.
 
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Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
If I had my way the top marginal income tax brackets would be 50-60% and capital gains taxes would match those on a short-term basis but slowly decline on a long-term basis.

I did get here the hard way. I do have a conscience, which is why I cannot stand aside and let the current situation continue. I recognize that even without higher top marginal tax brackets something needs to be done.

Part of the reason why I talk the way I do is because I grew up working class in the midwest. I see how much I make and I recognize that marginally higher taxes really would not have an effect on my wealth accumulation or spending habits. If I am on such a lower cusp of wealth, then I can see how it effects the higher brackets.

This is why I have a hard time accepting that somebody making 300,000 would spend so much less when their tax bill would go up less than $200/mo. Keeping that in mind, in relation to how much they make, I find it difficult to agree that somebody making more than 25,000/mo, ~16,000 takehome after payroll tax dropoffs at 108k, would be all that worried about $200/mo.

Seems like this would work. Even though taxes were 92% back in Eisenhower's days after he rose them that is a bit too confiscatory IMO.

Biggest thing we could do is just get Americans working again. i.e. need more tax payers less dependents so I think we need some walls to trade. Basically if you're slave nation rip off artist police state? maybe no trade. Germany, Japan? fine.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
19
81
Obama's a fool. Before the ink dries on this turkey, the Repugs are going to turn around and drive a knife in his back and claim that he's fiscally irresponsible. And guess why, because your basic American voter is an idiot.

I'm done with this politically nieve fool.

Of course the other idiot Reed help set this trap for him by not getting this shit straightened out before the last election.

Bernie Sanders for president.

He's not a fool. He's right wing. I've been telling you guys this since day 1 with builders bailouts and not bailing out people, with health insurance and pharma subsidy. What's funny to me these past couple years is y'all defended him and right wing thinks he's some muslim commie. And yes Republicans are sharpening daggers, not right enough and not white enough.
 

xenolith

Golden Member
Aug 3, 2000
1,588
0
76
Odd, but 20% owning 80% has been the case for a long, long time. Medieval Europe (at least France and England; Switzerland might have been better and in most nations wealth was even more concentrated) had that same ratio, and even ancient Rome was about the same.

Ever studied progress in civilization? When agriculture and/or other food gathering becomes successful enough, specialization begins. That excess wealth produced in food allows others to produce different kinds of wealth. That lifts societies from a subsistence economy to another level; as more wealth is created than is consumed, that wealth is loaned out to people who start new businesses, often manufacturing things not previously made at all, sometimes just manufacturing things more efficiently. If instead that concentration of wealth is artificially removed, then concentration by more capable individuals is replaced by increased consumption by all.

Now, where we can shape our societal rules to spread that wealth over a larger part of the population by creating more wealth, I'm all for it. The problem with the progressive ideology is fourfold. First, that it sees wealth concentration as inherently evil. No wealth concentration means no societal progress. Second, it empowers government as the arbiter of how wealth should be invested, spent, redistributed. Government isn't sentient; it depends on men to make its decisions. There's a very accurate canard that "None of us are as smart as all of us." By empowering government, a comparatively small number of bureaucrats needs must make the decisions that all of us, acting in the market, previously made. Just as almost no funds beat the index, almost no government-directed economy is ever going to match or surpass a free market economy in wealth creation.

Third, by empowering government as the arbiters of wealth distribution, progressives create a disincentive to wealth creation and innovation. If a person looks at a potential gain of $200,000 for a $100,000 investment, he can justify taking a moderate risk with that $100,000. If instead he knows government will take $180,000 of his $200,000 gain, it becomes much less attractive to risk his $100,000 since at best he'll increase it by 20% while at worst he'll lose it all. By such actions are progress and innovation thwarted, which is why highly taxed societies are not typically innovative societies. By decreasing the potential gains, you make most risks not worth taking.

Fourth, and probably worst, by empowering government to seize some portion of a person's wealth, for no better reason than he has it, and by empowering government to decide how much of a person's wealth it deserves, you undercut the very concept of freedom. Instead, you reduce us all to serfs, whose function in the world is to toil for government rather than for ourselves and our own.

Show me a method for increasing our society's wealth - but increasing it most strongly among the middle class or poor - and I'll be all for it. Show me a scheme for artificially redistributing the existing wealth and I'll likely argue that it will end us making our society less wealthy overall. That may suit progressives, but it does not suit me.

Quote if you agree. :eek::thumbsup:


This guy said it most eloquently and succinctly:
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the uneven division of blessings, while the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal division of misery." - Winston Churchill

And Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and the rest of the EU can now relate to:
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." - Margaret Thatcher
 

Carmen813

Diamond Member
May 18, 2007
3,189
0
76
Odd, but 20% owning 80% has been the case for a long, long time. Medieval Europe (at least France and England; Switzerland might have been better and in most nations wealth was even more concentrated) had that same ratio, and even ancient Rome was about the same.

Ever studied progress in civilization? When agriculture and/or other food gathering becomes successful enough, specialization begins. That excess wealth produced in food allows others to produce different kinds of wealth. That lifts societies from a subsistence economy to another level; as more wealth is created than is consumed, that wealth is loaned out to people who start new businesses, often manufacturing things not previously made at all, sometimes just manufacturing things more efficiently. If instead that concentration of wealth is artificially removed, then concentration by more capable individuals is replaced by increased consumption by all.

Now, where we can shape our societal rules to spread that wealth over a larger part of the population by creating more wealth, I'm all for it. The problem with the progressive ideology is fourfold. First, that it sees wealth concentration as inherently evil. No wealth concentration means no societal progress. Second, it empowers government as the arbiter of how wealth should be invested, spent, redistributed. Government isn't sentient; it depends on men to make its decisions. There's a very accurate canard that "None of us are as smart as all of us." By empowering government, a comparatively small number of bureaucrats needs must make the decisions that all of us, acting in the market, previously made. Just as almost no funds beat the index, almost no government-directed economy is ever going to match or surpass a free market economy in wealth creation.

Third, by empowering government as the arbiters of wealth distribution, progressives create a disincentive to wealth creation and innovation. If a person looks at a potential gain of $200,000 for a $100,000 investment, he can justify taking a moderate risk with that $100,000. If instead he knows government will take $180,000 of his $200,000 gain, it becomes much less attractive to risk his $100,000 since at best he'll increase it by 20% while at worst he'll lose it all. By such actions are progress and innovation thwarted, which is why highly taxed societies are not typically innovative societies. By decreasing the potential gains, you make most risks not worth taking.

Fourth, and probably worst, by empowering government to seize some portion of a person's wealth, for no better reason than he has it, and by empowering government to decide how much of a person's wealth it deserves, you undercut the very concept of freedom. Instead, you reduce us all to serfs, whose function in the world is to toil for government rather than for ourselves and our own.

Show me a method for increasing our society's wealth - but increasing it most strongly among the middle class or poor - and I'll be all for it. Show me a scheme for artificially redistributing the existing wealth and I'll likely argue that it will end us making our society less wealthy overall. That may suit progressives, but it does not suit me.

I appreciate the response. A couple thoughts.

One is that an inherent assumption in your view is that wealth is a motivator for societal progression. Wealth may be a motivator, but I do not believe it to be the only motivator. Frankly, we've already seen the what happens when uses wealth as a motivator for progress is taken too far: we end up with greed. We have incentivized some truly disgusting behavior that has caused harms to millions. I don't necessarily blame the individual perpetrators, because they are simply the product of a flawed environment where there is no such thing as actual success. When the bar is constantly raised on you and your very way of existence is threatened if you eventually fail (and you will eventually fail if that bar keeps going higher), it opens up a whole can of worms. Ultimately we will do what we need to do to survive.

Secondly, there is little inherent freedom difference between being manipulated by a government and manipulated by a powerful individual or corporation. Lack of freedom is a lack of freedom, they are one in the same. The person being oppressed cares little if his oppressor is the President of the United States or the President of IBM. The typical argument is that a corporation could never accrue as much power as a government can, but I think we can see in our world today that this is simply factually incorrect. Or that a person could simply leave a job where they are being treated poorly, but in this type of economy that isn't the case.

I do hold the belief that wealth concentration is inherently harmful to society. With wealth comes power, and with power comes the ability to control others. Many of us on this board rail against the 2 party system, but the fact is that wealthy interests on both sides keep those parties funded because they are interested in maintaining a status quo. They have successfully convinced the majority of the American people that the only choices are actually two of the same thing: both Democrats and Republicans are on the authoritarian right when compared to politics on a global scale. Each believes government is the way to solve problems, despite what rhetoric we might here from them. For the record, socialism is on the authoritarian left. I'm talking about a something completely different.

In counseling, we are always worried when a client exhibits signs of dichotomous thinking (things are either black or white, good or bad, ect). The same holds true for politics: liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, these are all dichotomies...and they frankly oversimplify what are very complicated issues. These labels also dehumanize people and attempt to lump them together, which is why our political rhetoric is so heated.

The problem is that this causes us to jump to conclusions, and lack of understanding makes it very easy to jump to base human emotions like anger, which is really a surface emotion hiding something deeper (typically, fear, powerlessness, lack of control). It makes discussing a topic like this impossible because people automatically start screaming SOCIALIST!!!11!!1!! when they haven't actually considered that perspective might not actually be about government controlled industry (which is what socialism is.)

That wealth concentration causes a disincentive for the little guy. If the vast majority of money is frozen in the hands of 1 in 5 people, he has extremely limited resources from which he can implement his idea. If he can't convince those "investors" that his idea has some merit, he never gets anywhere. I'm sure this is as just as destructive for societal progress as a government that takes too much in taxes as you suggest.

When I think of wealth concentration, what "makes" sense to me is more a bell curve. Arguing that we have a robust and strong "middle class", when in reality the middle class holds so little wealth as to have no real power. We can vote, but there is a reason our campaigns cost so much money: with the right rhetoric, those votes can be bought...and in reality, most people won't vote anyway, so they capitulate what little power they actually had.

There would still be some extremely wealth people in the ideal situation I foresee, but they as a group would not have a disproportionate amount of power. It's about getting the vast sums (and these numbers are truly vast) of money that sitting idly, collecting interest and dividends, moving in our free market system again. It isn't about a power grab by the government taking it and deciding who gets the benefit the most from that money. I want that no more than you do. Rather, it's about creating policies that unfreeze wealth and keep it moving about the system (i.e., constantly being redistributed)...and ultimately lead to a more robust middle class. It's also about preventing the creation of an "American Aristocracy," which is a very real fear the founders had.

In a capitalist economy there will always be winners and losers. That doesn't mean we have to have accept quite so many losers and quite so few winners. I also completely reject the notion that wealth is the sole motivator for societal progression. Money is important, and to a certain level it can by you security and stability. Past a certain point, it really just doesn't matter anymore. I can tell you I'm surrounded every day by people doing important work who know they aren't going to be rich at the end of their lives. We obtain a different type of satisfaction from what we do.
 
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