But the Community Reinvestment Act and ACORN caused the whole crisis, don’cha know? It was, of course, poor people’s fault, ultimately, as it always is. Their apparent powerlessness is just a façade that hides the fact that they really run everything!
At least according to what Fox News was peddling 24/7 last October, and tying it all to then-candidate Obama. :-)
OK, snark aside, all of those things others have pointed out here with regard to Brad’s original question apply.
Dismissing the article because of the author’s, that is an excellent way to go about life. Anyone that disagrees with your view, regardless of the facts they base their disagreement on, has nothing of value to say. Since you won’t read the article…
Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.
Did the greater prosperity in low-tax states happen by chance? Is it coincidence that the two highest tax-rate states in the nation, California and New York, have the biggest fiscal holes to repair? No. Dozens of academic studies – old and new – have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses.
Good riddance to the super rich. Take your jobs, your capital investment activities, and get out of here. We would be better off if Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell would just leave our country. I believe Sweden has that same attitude which is why the founder of Ikea lives in Switzerland. I’m SURE the Swedish are glad for his departure.
When you learn to spell, I’ll start to take your posts seriously. Also, I might point out that Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell all still live in the United States, and, as far as I know, always have. And if Bill Gates left, I doubt I’d notice.
When I learn to spell? Please point out where I was in error. I left out a word, but that isn’t a spelling error. It should have read, author’s point of view, though when referring to 2 authors in this case would be authors’, but I chose to stick with author’s because it was a more general then specific statement.
My point about Steve, Bill, and Michael leaving was in response to those saying to let the super rich leave.
Um, you are aware of why they let Lehman fail, right? It was to prove that the systemic integrity of the market would not be damaged by the collapse of a major institution, proving that our self-adjusting free market is perfectly fine without commie bastard intervention. You know who let Lehman fail, right? Poulson and Bernanke, for refusing to do a cash injection in the first place. They’re hardly bleeding-heart liberals.
It’s also a fact that politicians don’t act in a vacuum. Many are certainly ideologically driven, blinded to reason like any blinkered zealot, but they have advisors because very often, politicians aren’t economists or lack experience from financial institutions. Those advisors tend to be experts in their fields, and they tend to come from the ranks of successful investment banks. Essentially, the banks have consulted on their own regulation, and they’ve cleverly attempted to optimize the system for themselves, like any greed-is-gooder would do given the chance. After all, it’s increasing the efficiency of the financial markets, and that must be good. Because if it isn’t good, then why would we believe so?
Last I noticed IKEA still creates jobs worldwide even though the (incredibly tightfisted) Kamperåd doesn’t live in Sweden anymore. Considering his reputation I don’t think the Swedes would critize their high taxes, but rather certain rich peoples unwillingness to pay their part:
I don’t see how your opinion that because a lot of very rich people don’t like paying taxes somehow correlates to the fact, that high taxes are bad… perhaps it’s just the regulation and persecution of tax evaders that are bad and should be stepped up?
It’s a well known fact in my country with high taxes, that international corporations like McDonalds, Coca Cola and Nestlé are set up in ways so they have no taxable profits in Denmark… does that automatically mean we should lower our corporate taxes, because we’re losing tax income from those companies?
I’d prefer we plug the holes and tax them. If that means the loss of McDonalds burgers and crappy Nestlé foods, I’m sure some taxpaying company would fill that void.
Um, you are aware of why they let Lehman fail, right? It was to prove that the systemic integrity of the market would not be damaged by the collapse of a major institution, proving that our self-adjusting free market is perfectly fine without commie bastard intervention. You know who let Lehman fail, right? Poulson and Bernanke, for refusing to do a cash injection in the first place. They’re hardly bleeding-heart liberals.
Step 1. Create straw man argument and attach it to someone as theirs without them asserting it
Step 2. Burn up straw man
Step 3. Pat yourself on the back for educating a dumb right-wing idealogue who didn’t pay attention to his college professors
So is that how that works for you? I never claimed right or left responsibility for the banking collapse. I pinned primary blame on the politicians and bureacrats.
The found of Ikea is an alcoholic Nazi who is so miserly that he makes Sam Walton look like Gianni Versace. I’m sure Sweden doesn’t care where he hides his money or buys his cafeteria meals.
Clean up your spelling or you will risk having your post not read! It is “founder”
…
You rock that hissy fit, dude.
Both you and Brad take up one side of the argument and act as if it is some big dispute:
I don’t know about others, but I didn’t think this one was actually up for debate.
What both you and Brad ignore are the benefits of the unsavory thing called taxes. And yes, some of those benefits are dirty, commie forms of wealth re-distribution (what do you think progressive taxes are??). That’s why people are asking what you get for those taxes, what is the current wealth distribution, etc.
Heck, all your arguments could be resolved into the simple solution of tax no one.
But it’s good to know that in-depth exposes show that taxes aren’t particularly enjoyable to the taxee.
A lot of people have asked for clarification of the hypothetical, which shows a lack of initiative I believe. Since it’s all hypothetical, one can make any assumptions one wants. So let’s view it with some assumptions in place.
This hypothetical scenario is in regards to the Hypothetical States of America (HSA) and has an economy and wealth distribution roughly analogous to the USA.
The hypothetical proposed tax is on the top 1% of income earners (forget wealth, we are just talking income) and includes a consolidated view of income to incorporate capital gains, earned income, etc in the same taxation structure.
The income taxes on the other 99% of the population are at lower rates but not massively so, thus no perverse incentives are created for people to secure lower income jobs so that it results in more take home pay.
The income taxes are being spent relatively wisely in a way that benefits the whole population.
Given those assumptions, I’m down with 90% taxation.
The WSJ editorial page lies, a lot, and Stephen Moore is a goddamn idiot. Sorry. If your point is so clearly true, surely you can find an analysis by non-crank sources.
I disagree with this most strongly. Being in a democracy does not mean that whenever 99% of people think we should do something that we should do it. There are right, which are meant to protect against such tyranny. We do NOT live in a direct democracy in large part because you can’t really protect rights in such a state. We have to have rule of law, and I don’t think taxation should be decided by straight vote. Most people will vote for lowering their own taxes and raising others, and thus it’s very likely you could have most Americans agreeing to make ONLY the extremely rich pay taxes at all.
It’s a terrible way to run a state, IMO.
Yeah, I’ve gotta go with Robert Sharp on this one to the extent that there are many things that the majority (whether directly or through representatives) should have no say over, like what consenting adults other adults choose to sleep with, and whether people can express their political views in speech and in writing.
Now I don’t think tax rates particularly fall into that category. In theory we could have marginal income tax rates that took 95% of every dollar made over, say, 2 million a year, but as a practical matter it would be counterproductive because it would encourage emigration, etc.
It would be very nice, however, if we had the political will to actually enforce the existing tax law for those whose often staggering incomes don’t get conveniently reported to the government on Form W-2. Luckily, there aren’t that many people who make millions of dollars a year/month/day, so it shouldn’t involve a huge outlay of resources on the part of the Feds to make them pay the 35% marginal rate or whatever it is. Alas, those same people give lots of money (because they can) to our American bought-and-paid for elections so no one with an ounce of political self-preservation instinct even talks about it.
Ghellggh…
Do not attribute to malevolence that which can be adequately explained with simple inadequacy, or, in Wikipedia-speak, Don’t Assume Bad Faith. Rich people are trying just about as hard as you are to avoid sending their money to the government and probably not much harder. There is a defensible argument that lower tax rates are a good thing. It’s not a coincidence that a lot of Republicans are rich old dudes, but that, in itself, doesn’t mean that their tax policy is a plan hatched for the express purpose of fleecing the nation. A 95% marginal tax rate has been tried on things in the past - listen to Taxman off of Revolver for a hint of how well The Beatles took it. Tax evasion these days is easy on account of how ridiculously complex the tax code actually is, but those complications are largely the result of good-faith efforts to make the system better, not shadowy back room deals between politicians and the three wealthiest heads of the secret council of the Illuminati to protect Donald Trump’s investments. It irritates me to see what are honestly attempts to make things better, however misguided they might be, interpreted as deliberate attempts to do the wrong thing.
As I wrote, I’m not arguing for a 95% marginal rate, nor anything approaching that. I just wish bazillionaires were paying their fair share. Note: I’m not even talking about “the top 1%” because that percentile has people on the bottom end whose lifestyle, while certainly prosperous and enviable to many of the rest of us, has little in common with that of people like the CEO’s of major corporations.
And while I concede your point that the tax code is ridiculously complex, I don’t in the least concede that most of that complexity ISN’T the product of some trade group/company/individuals/whatever trying to get out of paying what they would otherwise have to. There are a number of examples of it in that book I mentioned earlier in this thread. Just the story of how Oregon’s own Bob Packwood introduced a provision that affected the taxation of private corporate planes, which became law, will make your blood boil. The effect of it is that it would actually cost less for the Federal government to write checks to cover first class tickets on commercial airliners for every trip taken on those planes–and many of those trips aren’t even true business trips to boot–not that the government should be paying for them in any case even if they were.
Well, perhaps I should clarify my comments by saying that there are limits to what I would accept on the basis of 99% democratic support. Some moral wrongs are so absolute that they justify violent struggle to oppose them, even if the majority is in favour. John Brown believed, for example, that slavery was so immoral that it was justified to take up arms against a society that supported it. He made some bad decisions, imho, but on this point of moral judgement I would agree with him.
I also agree with you that we have to have the rule of law, but how do you think those laws should be made? If you want to eliminate the idea that the legitimacy of laws rests on the will of the majority, you have to suggest where else that legitimacy is going to come from - and why it should be allowed to supervene over the will of the majority. If democracy is so bad because of what can happen when 99% of people support something, what alternative do you propose? Any form of government has to be a compromise between ideals and reality. In some ways, that’s a good thing: in reality, it’s very, very hard to get 99% agreement to anything.
One of the advantages of a two-party system is that the platforms of both parties already represent “compromise packages”. Nobody supports 100% of the things in “their” party’s platform, and nobody gets exactly what they want. This is a big part of what protects us against people “voting their own taxes down and other people’s taxes up”. But if there was some mix of taxation that 99% of people supported, it goes without saying that both parties would adopt it as one of the main planks of their platform. Unless you believed that that mix of taxation was a moral evil on a level with slavery or genocide, what option would you have but to “support” (ie, accept) it?
I don’t believe in hypothetical situations. It’s like lying to your brain.