Fixing Inequality through Taxes

If I had made that argument, you'd have a point.

Raising taxes on the middle class while slashing them for the richest definitely is.

You're repeating yourself.



The bottom 90% of Americans didn't suddenly stop taking second jobs, or starting business, or increasing their skill levels that caused the suppression of middle class incomes and skyrocketing inequality starting in 1981.

Something else happened that year.

1981 was the year Reagan was elected and ushered in the Reagan "trickle down" revolution which over the past 30 years has featured raising taxes on the working middle/lower classes, slashing taxes for the richest, suppressing the power of unions, suppressing minimum wage increases, etc.

 

Your description is false, it is not a strawman at all. You've attempted to explain the great jump in inequality because of investments and investment risk.

But it is a false explanation. The richest didn't suddenly start making investments and taking investment risk in 1981.

Something else happened that year.

It's amazing to me how much 1% apologists will jump around making excuses for the great jump in inequality to avoid acknowledging the obvious.

 

Sounds complicated; why not simply subsidize labor at the rock bottom cost of a form of Minimum wage; it would function as that market based metric in our political-economy.

Anyone who actually believes they can command a prevailing market based wage, would be free to do so.

What employer would be worse off with only more efficient labor applying for work, especially in Right to Work States.

 

When I said "You don't understand it "just fine", as evidenced by the fact that you mention losing ones job in a conversation about INVESTMENT risk."

and you replied with

That is the quintessential definition of a strawman argument. Let me explain because you seem confused. Clearly I was referring SPECIFICALLY to investment risk, and no other form of risk. In fact, I could not possibly have been any clearer. Your response about pretending that a worker doesn't have risk of losing his livelihood, had absolutely nothing to do with what I had just said, yet you acted as if you had just refuted what had been said, unless somehow I could prove that a worker doesn't have risk of losing his livelihood. Therein lies your strawman.

I have not attempted to explain inequality in any form or fashion. I have kept my subject VERY narrowly defined to the subject of investment income. I know exactly how you are, and the word games that you play, so I have been very careful to keep my subject narrowly defined. It is not a surprise however that you have done everything in your power to broaden the conversation to somehow make it about Reagan,because that is what you do, day after day, after day, after day, after day.......

I said not one thing about this subject, yet you present it once again as if you are refuting something that I had just said. Strange.

Im not sure why it is amazing to you, since the only person in this conversation discussing the jump in inequality is you. You are putting words into my mouth, and then are subsequently AMAZED at those words. Strange. It is almost like a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

Tax hikes on the middle class, eh. I wonder whether the tax rate on the middle class is raised every year to offset the growth in their pre-tax incomes.

 

Addressed above.

Oh, then your entire contribution was one irrelevant diatribe. My bad.

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The amount of tax they pay goes up with their income.

 

Obviously. However, unless they somehow reached some bracket where their marginal rate is 100%, growth in their pre-tax income would result in growth in their after-tax income.

You seem to be blaming tax hikes for 30 years of no growth in after-tax income. In order for the taxes to be the cause, the effective tax rate would have to increase every year to offset growth in pre-tax income.

However, the effective tax rate has not increased every year. Therefore the growth of middle class incomes must be being "suppressed" by other means, and we can discard tax hikes as the reason.

 

How about you cut and paste where you addressed this ?

It wasn't an irrelevant diatribe even remotely. You said that there is no reason that employees should share in the profits, and I pointed out that they shouldn't because they have not shared in the investment risk. Just because I wouldn't let you take that narrowly defined topic, into your pre programmed, well traveled rant about Reagan, doesn't make it irrelevant.

I have seen your movie before, and I know EXACTLY how it ends. You otherwise seem like a reasonably bright guy, but virtually every debate you get into always ends up in the same place. The same charts. The same statements. It seems like the only thing that ever varies, is how long it takes you to steer the conversation to the same predictable place.

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The amount of tax they pay goes up with their income.[/QUOTE]

 

"Your description is false, it is not a strawman at all. You've attempted to explain the great jump in inequality because of investments and investment risk.

But it is a false explanation. The richest didn't suddenly start making investments and taking investment risk in 1981.

Something else happened that year. "

What I said and the reasons I've said it are in the record.

 

Indeed it is, and therein lies your problem. Oh well, don't worry, very few people will bother to read its entirety. All is not lost. You can carry on, lying in wait for the next opportunity to go on your Reagan rant. If that opportunity doesn't present itself, I have no doubt that you will make it present itself. With enough effort, a square peg can indeed be made to go into a round hole.

 

Thanks for sharing your opinions, but I don't have a problem .

 

As long as things like credibility, intellectual honesty, and respect aren't important to you, then I suppose you indeed do NOT have a problem. My bad. One of these days I am going to learn to stop overestimating you.

 

I'm fine with my record for intellectual honesty and credibility. You on the other hand, have an established record of being intellectually dishonest. So pardon me if I don't put a lot of credence in your blather.

 

I agree to disagree that labor faces no risk due to, for example, bad management that bankrupts a company; and, potentially lose vested equity in any given retirement account.

 

Yeah. Sure.

 

I believe Labor merely needs to secure better rights in private property on an at-will basis than may be the case on a for-Cause basis.

 

I am not going to pretend to be an expert on all forms of retirement accounts. With that being said, in your example, wouldn't their retirement account therefore be their own private version of speculation? Afterall, if their retirement is dependent upon the company surviving to pay off ( as you are saying), wouldn't that payoff therefore be their profit, and the potential loss of that equity being their risk?

Truthfully, Im pretty sure most if not all retirement accounts are supposed to be fully funded, or a crime has occurred. In instances where there is a loss, most of that is insured by the government anyway, so the employees risk is minimal.

 

I think this thread took a wrong turn. Please re-read the OP. How do's taxing affect income inequality?

 

Threads tend to go off on tangents after 52 pages.

 

Let's say a sculptor pays a worker $10/hr for to sweep his shop floor every afternoon. The sculptor buys a very rare and expensive chunk of marble for $250,000 with which he intends to carve a special statue. After he carves the statue, highest price he can get for it is $100. Thus he has lost nearly $250,000 on his business.

It sounds like you're saying that the broom pusher has every reason to share in the sculptor's loss.

 

Yeah, the broom sweeper will probably be fired and lose his income and livelihood.

I am saying that the workers in American should share in the economics gains in the country. They certain do share in its losses.

 

That's not what I'm asking. The business owner just lost about $250,000. He has to pay the marble vendor $250,000 for the marble. Should any of that debt be the responsibility of the broom pusher?

 

Nope.

.....

 

Well that is very interesting. So you want the employee to get his wages *and* share in the profits of the business without being on the hook for the debts of the business like the owner is.

 

Where did I say he should share in the profits?