From the Nov. ’13 Review of Income and Wealth: This paper provides a full decomposition of world [individual purchasing-power-parity income] inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, in the period 1970–2009. (
No, Robin is. I'm merely his disciple. Fools assert values when they could be discussing facts.
Seeing interactions as zero-sum when they aren't is a factual error, not just personal opinion.
True, but it's not what you wrote. (It's a weasel.) You maintained that concern with equality encourages seeing interactions as zero sum, and that's why it's "wrong." You resist seeing interactions as zero sum even when they are. Your "personal value" is that "cooperation" is better than competition (read class struggle). (This you admit.) Thus, you necessarily will favor seeing (at least some) zero-sum interactions as nonpositional.
This self-admitted and self-vindicated bias against recognizing zero-sum interactions (based on valuing "cooperation" over "competition") is also self-invalidating.
It's a two steps forward, one step backwards process, so there will always be temporary exceptions. Differences in ethical beliefs about things such as biotechnology will eventually be overruled by either the mighty dollar or the mighty armies and cultural exports of some dominant power, eventually even a world government (this doesn't mean everything will be allowed, it could be that the dominant power simply de-facto forbids some things throughout the world, like Great Britain did with the slave trade from 1807 onwards), the same goes for other hot-button topics like AI slavery.
Seeing interactions as zero-sum when they aren't is a factual error, not just personal opinion. But sure, a preference for cooperation over conflict is a personal value.
And you are... the personal values police? Ridiculous.
Edit: And also with new biotechnologies, some societies may decide to ban them while others do not. This and a resulting global chasm I think are not inevitable, or maybe even likely, but "irreversible" equality seems too confident
"It's that they [capital gains taxes] decrease investment and lower growth."
That's what I contend.
"As you say, the increased income of workers could partially result in compensatory effects through pension funds and such, but its only a partial compensation."
Why would it only be partial? Are people going to put money in mattresses? When I talked about a partial shift I talked about direct investment, but I also talked about indirect investment (buying stuff, generating income for the business that they can choose to invest). On average businesses should have access to the same amount of capital, they'll just get it from different sources.
To be clear: I'm not talking about raising the total amount of taxes but about equalizing capital gains taxes with income taxes (higher capital gains tax, lower income tax, same total taxation)
Equalizing capital gains and labor taxes in a closed system would at worst make stuff more expensive by the same amount consumer income would go up (in this case capitalists manage to pass the cost of higher capital gains taxes entirely to consumers)
Not sure how you see this as relevant. The "inefficiency" of capital gains taxes isn't that they raise prices. (That's not an inefficiency from the capitalist standpoint.) It's that they decrease investment and lower growth. (As you say, the increased income of workers could partially result in compensatory effects through pension funds and such, but its only a partial compensation.)
If I understand you, you're interpreting "inefficiency" as "ineffectively redistributive." I don't know that anyone claims that of these taxes. Capital gains taxes are good for redistribution but bad for growth. (Therein lies the "blackmail": under capitalism, you've got to pick one or the other. Built into the system is a "capitalist strike" against effective taxation.)
Equalizing capital gains and labor taxes in a closed system would at worst make stuff more expensive by the same amount consumer income would go up (in this case capitalists manage to pass the cost of higher capital gains taxes entirely to consumers), in better cases stuff would get more expensive but consumer income would increase even more and investment will partially shift from individual stock buying towards investment through sales, pension funds and bank loans (in these cases capitalists lose some of their income to everyone else).
Most taxes are inefficient from the standpoint of capitalist economics but I see no purely economic reason why you would want to favor capital over labor. I mean why would a dollar a business receives from an investor be more important than a dollar that same business receives as profit off of selling something to a consumer?
(To be clear, I assume by "you" you mean the impersonal "you" rather than to refer to me.)
The reason taxes on capital are more inefficient than taxes on sales of consumer goods is that workers often must purchase goods regardless of their price, whereas capitalist investment declines sharply when profits decline. Workers (usually) buy goods because they need them, and will continue to buy them if the price is a little higher. Capitalists invest to make money (and only for that reason). So, if their profits on investment decline, investment decreases (more than workers' purchases decrease).
"From the standpoint of capitalist economics, capital-gains taxes are very "inefficient." "
Most taxes are inefficient from the standpoint of capitalist economics but I see no purely economic reason why you would want to favor capital over labor. I mean why would a dollar a business receives from an investor be more important than a dollar that same business receives as profit off of selling something to a consumer? At least in a divided (no world government) world TGGP has a point saying that capital can flee to tax havens but that can't be the whole story since taxhavens are usually tiny and could therefore be "persuaded" by larger nations to stop being tax havens, larger nations not doing this points to political corruption, making the "capital can flee" argument circular reasoning (a bit like the mafia demanding protection money when the mafia is itself is causing the unsafety).
Or, he who makes the rules gets the gold. Power existed long before gold (sorta).
While I agree that social power ultimately reduces to physical reality, dreamtime humans live most of their lives in make-believe worlds where the experience of controlling others can be had for pennies. Real power is zero-sum, but imaginary power is not.
Income inequality is easy to stomach when you have a hyperstimulating Imaginarium in your pocket.
Income inequality gets more attention than it deserves... People already intuitively err on the wrong side of this spectrum.
It dumbfounding that six readers approved this pure statement of ideology. More attention than it "deserves"? The "wrong" side? And why is it "wrong"? Because of what it "encourages." This is the purest, most unsophisticated, unadulterated statement of personal values. Yet it is taken as the most valuable contribution to the discussion (along with another purely ideological comment).
It is important to differentiate between ''opposes equality" and "endorses policies that increase inequality''. Opponents of overgenerous welfare subsidies could be described as inegalitarian, but mostly they seem to simply hate handouts, not who receives them or the resultant decrease in equality.
Inegalitarianism suggests a principled aversion to inequality, but such an aversion strikes me as rare.
basically amounts to giving in to blackmail, also why isn't the capital gains tax 0% in all countries then?
That's the nature of capitalism. Capital gets to blackmail the public because profit is the sole motive for producing useful goods.
From the standpoint of capitalist economics, capital-gains taxes are very "inefficient." On the other hand, excluding capital gains from taxation creates (it used to be recognized) a huge tax loophole. Capital has considerable discretion over how its profits are realized.
I expect them to try to have their cake and eat it too, with regressive taxation being harder to implement and therefore the less successful component of the two-tiered approach.
I think regressive taxation is a feudal remnant of sorts. I would agree it's not an open-and-shut case about what the economic elite would do because there are always two factions: those looking to maintain the apparent legitimacy of the system ("liberals") and those who can't see beyond the point of their nose ("reactionaries").
But I think your analysis of immigration ignores the fact that cheapening labor in one branch of production cheapens it overall. Imagine that agricultural workers could obtain the wages that native workers would demand. Workers from other branches could seek agricultural employment if they're otherwise unemployed, raising wages in the branch of production they're leaving.
It has been going terribly down since 2000. -http://akisuomela.com/
You resist seeing interactions as zero sum even when they are.
Except I never wrote nor implied that. But hey, keep making shit up.
No, Robin is. I'm merely his disciple.
My advice: Seek professional help. Your behavior here suggests you really need it.
No, Robin is. I'm merely his disciple. Fools assert values when they could be discussing facts.
Seeing interactions as zero-sum when they aren't is a factual error, not just personal opinion.
True, but it's not what you wrote. (It's a weasel.) You maintained that concern with equality encourages seeing interactions as zero sum, and that's why it's "wrong." You resist seeing interactions as zero sum even when they are. Your "personal value" is that "cooperation" is better than competition (read class struggle). (This you admit.) Thus, you necessarily will favor seeing (at least some) zero-sum interactions as nonpositional.
This self-admitted and self-vindicated bias against recognizing zero-sum interactions (based on valuing "cooperation" over "competition") is also self-invalidating.
It's a two steps forward, one step backwards process, so there will always be temporary exceptions. Differences in ethical beliefs about things such as biotechnology will eventually be overruled by either the mighty dollar or the mighty armies and cultural exports of some dominant power, eventually even a world government (this doesn't mean everything will be allowed, it could be that the dominant power simply de-facto forbids some things throughout the world, like Great Britain did with the slave trade from 1807 onwards), the same goes for other hot-button topics like AI slavery.
Seeing interactions as zero-sum when they aren't is a factual error, not just personal opinion. But sure, a preference for cooperation over conflict is a personal value.
And you are... the personal values police? Ridiculous.
but let us not forget counterpoints like this
http://econ.as.nyu.edu/docs...
Edit: And also with new biotechnologies, some societies may decide to ban them while others do not. This and a resulting global chasm I think are not inevitable, or maybe even likely, but "irreversible" equality seems too confident
"It's that they [capital gains taxes] decrease investment and lower growth."
That's what I contend.
"As you say, the increased income of workers could partially result in compensatory effects through pension funds and such, but its only a partial compensation."
Why would it only be partial? Are people going to put money in mattresses? When I talked about a partial shift I talked about direct investment, but I also talked about indirect investment (buying stuff, generating income for the business that they can choose to invest). On average businesses should have access to the same amount of capital, they'll just get it from different sources.
To be clear: I'm not talking about raising the total amount of taxes but about equalizing capital gains taxes with income taxes (higher capital gains tax, lower income tax, same total taxation)
Equalizing capital gains and labor taxes in a closed system would at worst make stuff more expensive by the same amount consumer income would go up (in this case capitalists manage to pass the cost of higher capital gains taxes entirely to consumers)
Not sure how you see this as relevant. The "inefficiency" of capital gains taxes isn't that they raise prices. (That's not an inefficiency from the capitalist standpoint.) It's that they decrease investment and lower growth. (As you say, the increased income of workers could partially result in compensatory effects through pension funds and such, but its only a partial compensation.)
If I understand you, you're interpreting "inefficiency" as "ineffectively redistributive." I don't know that anyone claims that of these taxes. Capital gains taxes are good for redistribution but bad for growth. (Therein lies the "blackmail": under capitalism, you've got to pick one or the other. Built into the system is a "capitalist strike" against effective taxation.)
Equalizing capital gains and labor taxes in a closed system would at worst make stuff more expensive by the same amount consumer income would go up (in this case capitalists manage to pass the cost of higher capital gains taxes entirely to consumers), in better cases stuff would get more expensive but consumer income would increase even more and investment will partially shift from individual stock buying towards investment through sales, pension funds and bank loans (in these cases capitalists lose some of their income to everyone else).
Most taxes are inefficient from the standpoint of capitalist economics but I see no purely economic reason why you would want to favor capital over labor. I mean why would a dollar a business receives from an investor be more important than a dollar that same business receives as profit off of selling something to a consumer?
(To be clear, I assume by "you" you mean the impersonal "you" rather than to refer to me.)
The reason taxes on capital are more inefficient than taxes on sales of consumer goods is that workers often must purchase goods regardless of their price, whereas capitalist investment declines sharply when profits decline. Workers (usually) buy goods because they need them, and will continue to buy them if the price is a little higher. Capitalists invest to make money (and only for that reason). So, if their profits on investment decline, investment decreases (more than workers' purchases decrease).
"From the standpoint of capitalist economics, capital-gains taxes are very "inefficient." "
Most taxes are inefficient from the standpoint of capitalist economics but I see no purely economic reason why you would want to favor capital over labor. I mean why would a dollar a business receives from an investor be more important than a dollar that same business receives as profit off of selling something to a consumer? At least in a divided (no world government) world TGGP has a point saying that capital can flee to tax havens but that can't be the whole story since taxhavens are usually tiny and could therefore be "persuaded" by larger nations to stop being tax havens, larger nations not doing this points to political corruption, making the "capital can flee" argument circular reasoning (a bit like the mafia demanding protection money when the mafia is itself is causing the unsafety).
Or, he who makes the rules gets the gold. Power existed long before gold (sorta).
While I agree that social power ultimately reduces to physical reality, dreamtime humans live most of their lives in make-believe worlds where the experience of controlling others can be had for pennies. Real power is zero-sum, but imaginary power is not.
Income inequality is easy to stomach when you have a hyperstimulating Imaginarium in your pocket.
Income inequality gets more attention than it deserves... People already intuitively err on the wrong side of this spectrum.
It dumbfounding that six readers approved this pure statement of ideology. More attention than it "deserves"? The "wrong" side? And why is it "wrong"? Because of what it "encourages." This is the purest, most unsophisticated, unadulterated statement of personal values. Yet it is taken as the most valuable contribution to the discussion (along with another purely ideological comment).
It is important to differentiate between ''opposes equality" and "endorses policies that increase inequality''. Opponents of overgenerous welfare subsidies could be described as inegalitarian, but mostly they seem to simply hate handouts, not who receives them or the resultant decrease in equality.
Inegalitarianism suggests a principled aversion to inequality, but such an aversion strikes me as rare.
basically amounts to giving in to blackmail, also why isn't the capital gains tax 0% in all countries then?
That's the nature of capitalism. Capital gets to blackmail the public because profit is the sole motive for producing useful goods.
From the standpoint of capitalist economics, capital-gains taxes are very "inefficient." On the other hand, excluding capital gains from taxation creates (it used to be recognized) a huge tax loophole. Capital has considerable discretion over how its profits are realized.
I expect them to try to have their cake and eat it too, with regressive taxation being harder to implement and therefore the less successful component of the two-tiered approach.
I think regressive taxation is a feudal remnant of sorts. I would agree it's not an open-and-shut case about what the economic elite would do because there are always two factions: those looking to maintain the apparent legitimacy of the system ("liberals") and those who can't see beyond the point of their nose ("reactionaries").
But I think your analysis of immigration ignores the fact that cheapening labor in one branch of production cheapens it overall. Imagine that agricultural workers could obtain the wages that native workers would demand. Workers from other branches could seek agricultural employment if they're otherwise unemployed, raising wages in the branch of production they're leaving.