Go ahead and explain it in tiny words.

Elliot: "I'm well inside the highest tax brackets and live in a high-tax state and the only people that seem "petty" and "bitter" to me are people who are crying about paying an extra 4% on a relatively small fraction of their income."(AFAIK he's the only person ITT who would see his taxes go up under Obama's plan)

Nitilism: "Is it possible your highest tax bracket salary is a result of government regulations and/or the governments' application of violent force? If so, you are not paying taxes, you are receiving a net transfer from taxpayers."

PB: (paraphrased) That critique is meaningless and could be applied to any profession, but offers an interesting view into the selfishness and hypocrisy of right wing populists agitating about the unfairness of taxation.


Then you guys started talking about rents and inflation for some reason.

In a shocking turn of events, you're uncomfortable discussing specifics and individuals and want to make this about the big picture unfairness and immorality of government not leaving you alone.

In a shocking turn of events, you're wrong.

Nitilism asks a question. PB's response doesn't answer it. And your paraphrase is basically wrong, anyway.

Also note that lawyers in particular have certain government-provided barriers to entry that protect their profession. These are smaller than government barriers protecting (eg) doctors, but they're higher than those protecting (eg) barbers.

Remember that scene in Hunt for Red October where Jonesy is trying to Mancuso that the noise he heard is a submarine and not (as the computer figured) a seismic anomaly?

The general contention is that the economic calculation problem makes it impossible to predict the effects of even simple policies. The specific case here is the entire existence of government and tax system. Why do you feel that the government can't predict the general effect of simple policies, yet you can predict the effects of wholesale changes in the sociopolitical strucure on specific people? Which, do you feel, is harder from a purely computational standpoint?


New money (M0) isn't given to anyone - it's sold in a public auction at a preannounced price. So everyone can get their hands on the new money at the market rate and no one does so at a better than market rate (except the Fed, whose excess profit in this endeavor is simply returned to the Treasury). Most of the actual money (M1 and onward) created is just loans between market participants, using M0 as a basis. If you lend money to another person, you've effectively increased money supply. Pretty much all money is just that. In other words, the system we have already is a system where anyone's free to create money. Of course, this is "gross money supply" as opposed to "net money supply" but that's irrelevant - "net money supply" in that sense is always 0. Every dollar owned is every dollar owed, with M0 simply representing dollars owed by the Fed. But in a current system, M0 is mostly irrelevant, because the difference between presently printed money and money that's been implicitly promised to be print in the future is rather moot. So we're back to, well, money is created by anyone willing to lend.

Go read some of those old infamous zygote vs phone-booth threads in BFI for clarification. Or the money supply thread in Economics. Or an Economics text. Reflect on why you seem to have strong opinions on complex institutions without comprehension of even the simplest mechanical aspects.

pvn- PB answered the question by demonstrating that asking it was a meaningless appeal to populism, hilariously so in a thread about taxing the elite.

Well, this is the greatest goalpost shift in the history of mankind.

Subsidies/handouts/protectionism/what-have-you to group X in particular may require a huge socio-economic apparatus to make them happen. That, however, does not imply that you can't have the socio-economic apparatus without the what-have-you for group X. You don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as you're basically implying here.

None of this refutes my point (in fact, you're basically agreeing with me). But it was a pretty impressive display of handwaving.

It's insulting to most of the world to claim that anyone who makes $10K isn't rich...

Someone who makes $250K doesn't have to worry about money. They might choose to pile on expenses that makes them feel like they have to, but they most certainly do NOT actually HAVE TO worry about money. And anyone who piles on those expenses without first setting themselves up for life pretty much deserves whatever happens to them.

How do those who get money first benefit at the expense of everyone else and what does it even mean to get money first when it's created? Money is created (in the sense of an increase in effective money supply) either 1) as a private transaction between private parties or 2) as a matter of interest rate policy, which doesn't necessarily entail any money change hands, since mere expected future policy creates money in this sense. Who benefits disproportionately?

Grunching,

Is it seriously being argued that some dont benefit moah from taxation than others. Nice ivory tower perspective.

I live in a region that has a massive net gain in taxation, via domestic spending and via funds received from Europe.

For example my region receives objective one and convergence funding, to a tune of about 1billion US+

The distribution of these funds is an industry in and of itself, one I have been closely involved with at the coal face.

The primary beneficiary of the funding are the small army of bureaucrats running the quangos and project managers drawing a salary to run projects of highly dubious relevance.

Most of these people would struggle immensely if they had to find themselves in private enterprise as they would just not be able to cope with the culture of actually having to perform and achieve real outcomes and not waste millions doing it.

Now of course this is anecdotal, but if you want some empirical evidence, just look at the procurement process in public and private industries. The reason why the public sector has a perfectly demonstrative history of huge over spends is because the staff organizing those spends (and the culture they operate in) are not really capable of organizing a **** in a toilet.

Investment banks making huge profits purely on merit. (See quantitative easing)

Im not going to reply yet to your post because it looks like you are clearly arguing that all financial actors have equal access to credit/margin/leverage and the opportunities derived thereby. If so lol. I mean this is so clearly wrong (Not even the posters in this thread have equal access to credit) that you must be saying something else.

Its amazing how a debate about applying more taxation on the rich in which posters defend this very idea, evolves to the point where those same posters are defending the financial status quo which allows the super rich to be super rich. Superb cognative dissonance.

And, if I may, vice-versa

Don`t worry, revolution is inevitable.

No, as taxing the super rich more would not stop them being super rich.

Its only dissonance when you say super rich not pay enough tax = oh noes socially unjust but system that creates super rich = teh awesome.

How do I subscribe to your newsletter?

What are investment banks privileged to do that allows them to make huge profits that you can't?


Aside from not being seen as creditworthy by other private market participants, yes everyone has equal access to credit. And let's step back for a second. Even if we grant you that Goldman Sachs, as opposed to any other private pool of capital, benefits from its easier access to credit, who disproportionately benefits, shareholders or employees? Nothing stops you from working at Goldman Sachs or becoming its partial owner, either, except through decisions made by private market participants. You know, despite all this talk about how financial institutions have this easy way of profitting from the system, one recommendation I've never seen from anyone in the ACist/Austrian-Economics/Voluntaryist/Fed-conspiracy/etc faction is buying into financials.

To the extent that opportunities to share this profit from inflation or whatever are available to the general public, again, those who buy it when it was cheaper and sell it when it's expensive, profits at the expense of those who do the opposite. To the extent that doing so correctly confers little benefit to society at large, this results in distribution of wealth that isn't connected to contribution to society.

If your general point was that there's something about the system that allows some people to disproportionately get rich beyond their contribution to society, well that's my point too. I'd argue that it's necessarily so - in any sufficiently wealthy society, the connection between wealth and productive contribution to society is likely very tenuous. Regardless of how you feel about the general case, do you agree that it's the case at least in this world we live in? After all, you've just talked about all these rich people who made money because of the system! After investors, lawyers, bankers, doctors, lobbyists and government contractors, I mean, who else is that rich anyway? Don't other rich people also get rich mostly by providing assisting those other rent-seekers?


I don't care much about taxation on the rich either way.

defy morality and digress societal progress.

shareholders are not who are protected for the most part, though accounting gimicks do help them in the short run and some bailout protection helps a touch. high up employees obviously raid the shareholders too when they can so the accounting gimicks can work against shareholder long run interests. really its bond holders who no one lets fail. when this protection is obvious though the opportunity to profit diminishes because rates fall so low until its discounted. in any case protection is more of a downside limiting factor than anything else. even cheap credit doesnt guarantee a firm will do well.

smart austrian based investors should ride the bubble up though. no reason why not.

I'm confused, now are you arguing that greed is bad? Are you morally opposed to making money by taking advantage of system or are you not?

But greed is good if you're a smart austrian-based investor?

Level? Must be a huge level.


I thought some considered you some kind of authority, but the above question is so naive to preclude that in anyway.

BFWIW, I am not allowed to sell my assets (Bonds) to a central bank in return for money it has just printed (quantitative easing) and I am not allowed to charge other players (those with access to the QE programme is limited )a fee to sell their assets to the CB.

I am then unable to take the sums received and collectively bid up equities or what ever vehicle it is is we discussed down at the wine bar last night or whenever it is we make the market.

I am not able to take huge positions on margin and leverage, which if they **** up, will be bailed out by the tax payer, allowing me to make one way bets for millions of dollars. I am unable to access credit at wholesale prices and must do so at what ever rate the IB decides to lend it to me at.

This is just flat out totally false.

You do realise that their is a big difference in credit costs within the financial system and retail direct to joe blow. Different charges for access =! equal access.

If that existed in isolation then maybe you have a point, maybe. However bubbles cause much more damage than that via mis allocation of resources.

Also most market players dont time the bubble and get blown out, of course this does not apply to those at the top of the financial system blowing the bubble (Investment bankers) as they get bailed out. This is evinced by the fact that retail banking, which deals credit to joe blow is in the toilet, whereas investment banking is currently going great guns.

Funny you should put it that way. There is a large, very envious, segment of society that sees it that way. It is that segment of society that does not understand that, although they are about 50% of the population, they pay less than 5% of taxes.

I see rich as when the federal government, via the IRS, starts drooling over your 1040.

Once you get that rich, you understand how detrimental and unfair our tax codes are on the economy.

its a tough one. if its okay to take advantage of the system, you must too accept anyone going gung-ho on benefits.

overall i take back what i said. i think the moral case is way to difficult to play.

its the type of invisible hand greed, not the invisible slap greed.

So what? We are not the rest of the world, thank god. In this country rich is simply a perspective of the viewer. I see rich as having enough money to pay off all of my bills and live debt free at a comforable level. I might see 250K a year as rich since that level of income could do just that. Someone living at the poverty level might see rich as being able afford three squares a day, a roof over their head and transportation to the job of their dreams.

As for the rest of the world; looks like they've got some catching up to do to reach the affluence that exists in the US and several European countries.