Fixing Inequality through Taxes

Yes, some silly rules do just that; some on the left have already argued that point with posters alleging to have some knowledge of new SEC rules coming down the pike.

 

You expressed a similar opinion on another thread and instead of repeating myself I'll just provide the link.

http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=399015&p=1064882327#post1064882327

Of note your statement "Before the industrial revolution families relied on everyone producing to prosper" is false. In point of fact the household generally relied far more on the man then than it does today to provide for the household. In Western societies women were generally prohibited from working at all except around the house in the cities and even in the farming communities their role was extremely limited. Yes, the women might help out minimalistically on a farm but all of the hard work was typically done by the men while the woman focused on raising the children and providing domestic services around the house. In fact the "dowry" that predates the industrial revolution was a payment provided by the parents of the bride to compensate the man for his future support of their daughter as his wife. Women were considered a financial liability (and the property of the man) and not an asset to the household.

It was probably the Industrial Revolution that first lead to women and children eventually contributing to the financial needs of the household were they were forced to work in sweatshops as virtual slave labor.

 

26-Year-Old MIT Graduate May Have Cracked The Code To Income Inequality

 

The only problem is a simple poverty of money in our Institution of money based markets; even some on the left know that, by now.

 

The only problem is that Matthew Rognlie is wrong according to the facts.

The primary driver in creating income inequities is the increasing obsolescence of human labor that is replaced by artificial intelligence and technology (robotics). There are numerous examples of this occurring.

Since 1970 the consumption of commodities per capita has increased dramatically worldwide as well as in the United States. During this same timeframe the per captia number of jobs in manufacturing that produces these goods has declined by roughly 40% both worldwide and in the United States. More goods (commodities produced by manufacturing) but fewer people earning a living producing them because their jobs were replaced by artificial intelligence and technology (robots). US manufacturing jobs haven't really been out-sourced because the number of jobs per capita in other countries are also declining but instead they've just disappeared because they were replaced by artificial intelligence and technology.

In mechanical engineering, a typically higher paying profession, today's computer programs like CATIA have replaced about 90% of the work previously done by the mechanical engineer. Tolerance build-up and finate element analysis, previously labor intensive for the engineer, is now all done by the computer. It only requires roughly 1/10th of the number of engineers today to accomplish what they did in 1970.

In the banking industry digital transfers, debit cards, and ATM's have replaced tellers and accountants reducing the per capita workforce by at least 80% since 1970.

Even in the medical profession Johnson & Johnson has introduces a machine that replaces the very high paying anesthesiologist and it doesn't make "human" mistakes so it's safer for the patient. If the anesthesiologist can be replaced by a computer and a robot then so can the brain surgeon eventually.

Predictions are that by 2045 computers will know more than the combined recorded knowledge of mankind since pencil was first put to paper and computers don't forget. Combined with technology (robots) human labor is going to become fundamentally obsolete. Everyone from the burger-flipper at McDonalds to the physicist can theoretically be replaced by a computer and technology.

As human labor becomes obsolete, and that's the direction we're headed, then no one can earn a living based upon their labor. It's the wealthy that ultimately own the artificial intelligence and the technology and if the people cannot earn a living based upon their labor even the wealthy lose because no one will have income from labor to purchase anything. The problem is that we're currently in the phase where the wealthy are milking the last of the workers of their income to fund the development of the artificial intelligence and technology that ultimately replaces the workers.

This is really the reason behind the "bar-bell" economy that is materializing. Originally the artificial intelligence and techology targeted the "middle income" jobs because that was were the "most cluck for the buck" (return on investment) was realized but as those jobs have been replaced the artifical intelligences and technology is spreading out to address the higher and lower income professions because that's what's left for it to replace.

Yes, at some point the entire economy collapses but we're not quite there yet. The real question is whether we'll address the coming collapse before it happens and there is little indication that we're doing that. The wealthy in control continue to be short-sighted and ignore their own future if something is not done about the future obsolescence of human labor.

That is not to say that artificial intelligence and technology are a bad thing. We'll need to address how the benefits of the artificial intelligence and technology can be shared by everyone though as opposed to just the wealthy owners of the artificial intelligence and technology benefiting from it. If only the wealthy benefit the entire economy ultimately collapses and everyone, rich and poor, loses but if everyone benefits then that collapse doesn't occur.

 

I travel through them almost everyday here in the South that it is abundantly true, wasteful frivolous spending. OH and payday loans and pawn your title shops to get that extra cash for the weekend.

 

I am all in favor of it blowing up and actively work with young people on how to stop the ponzi scheme, accelerating the date of finality. I will be passing on posterity but not by the way of government. I do not consider paying and not collecting as "honorable" but the obverse, a total dishonor.

But what I would really like to know, what future Americans prosperity are you trying to portend?

 

That isn't addressing posterity nor prosperity, just another scheme of robbery. Actually not just another scheme, but one much more dastardly than the current one.

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Solution, not likely, more like an illusion.

 

Sure they invest, in the entitlement system. Entitlements for all and $15 minimum wage to help pay that $30,000 to $150,000 college debt. Real winners, one and all.

 

The concept is as simple as employment at will can make it. You can't get any simpler than that and still resort to Individual Liberty.

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how difficult is it to defer income for tax purposes?

 

Same lame link as a couple of posts back. A new plan for slavery is really no different than any other plan for slavery. They all end in the same place, slaves for life.

And I can't say your plan is anywhere near pragmatic, you claim way too much credit as there are neither facts nor practical solutions. The only solution that fixes inequality via taxation would be the lack of taxation based upon property.

 

Please explain to me, invest in what? Savings paying at a rate less than real inflation, that isn't very bright. Stocks, all the money would be gone almost as fast as just going done to the local booze store and at least at the booze store there are the memories.

 

Liberty and enslavement are opposing views, they can't exist in the same realm as you are proposing.

 

No it is not, that is the runaway interpretation the government wants to usurp to derive power they do not possess.

 

You cannot appeal to ignorance of our welfare clause.

 

Give an example of my proposal, please.

 

Individual liberty, it seems that is something not understood. How can one have individual liberty and still be bound to at will employment?

Do you know what income is? Doesn't seem so when one thinks it can be deferred. Taxes, what taxes?

 

What welfare clause, there is none. But then if you want to have one, go right ahead, I abstain, doesn't apply to me anyway. And the faster one can cause total failure, the better. I'm ready, are you?

 

There you go.

 

Steady investing in mutual funds and due diligence real estate will provide decent returns overtime. I would much rather take my chances in the free market as apposed to a failed government Ponzi scheme. I assure you, the wealthy do not invest in socialist programs.

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Be specific. I see nothing that proposes anything but liberty.

 

Dude; the concept is employment at will. It can be contrasted to wage slavery due to indentured forms of servitude.

Yes, income can be deferred for tax purposes.

 

There is no appeal to ignorance of our own laws:

There is no appeal to ignorance of our welfare clause.

 

Why is "big government" the cause of wealth inequality? There are other countries, for example Belgium, whose governments are twice that of the United States and yet have no where near the wealth inequality we do (and just as much freedom). Moreover, is the size of government really the problem, or is it who that government works for?

 

Former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Marriner Eccles found that the single biggest contributing factor to the Great Depression was wealth inequality. When wealth "pools" at the top, it siphons away purchasing power from the middle class. But wait! The wealthy have more money than the middle class so it shouldn't matter so they can make up for the middle class's lack of spending! While it is true, the wealthy do have more money to spend , the top ten percent only account for about forty percent of the consumer spending. If the middle class doesn't have money to spend, there is no demand, no demand means business owners fail.