Re: novel argument against taxing rents
- From: royls@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 18:53:32 GMT
On Sat, 8 Apr 2006 00:33:37 -0400, "tonyp" <tonyp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"Les Cargill" <lNOcargill@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
But that goes back to the old question - what is earned
and what is unearned? That question seems resistant to
objectification.
Defining what is "earned" is a mug's game. Tony Soprano and his crew
consider the money they steal and extort to be "earned".
?? You want to let crooks and parasites justify their unearned
incomes and the harm they inflict on everyone else by redefining the
terms, eliminating the concepts needed to identify the truth? Been
there, done that. It's called "neoclassical economics."
The only reason we care about dividing incomes into "earned" and "unearned"
is because we foolishly allow our government to _tax_ them differently.
Garbage. You could not be more wrong. The foolish part is letting
them tax earned incomes at all, rather than making them get all their
revenue by taxing unearned incomes 100%. Earned income is the measure
of what the recipient contributes to society. Unearned income is the
measure of what society contributes to the recipient for doing
nothing. Which one should we be taxing? Hmmm. Decisions,
decisions...
The
standard theory is that taxing returns to capital at the same rate as wages
would inhibit capital investment. But is that assumption correct? If
correct, does it in any sense _optimize_ capital investment?
By accepting dishonest definitions, you are allowing your mind to be
turned into an instrument of your own destruction. The return to
genuine capital investment is _not_unearned_, because genuine capital
investment makes a contribution to production. It is economic rent
that is unearned.
It surely does not _maximize_ capital investment. Cap gains tax cuts do not
seem to have done a bit of good for the savings rate of the US.
Capital gains may be either earned or unearned, and savings may be
invested in genuine capital that contributes to production or in rent
collection privileges that only drag on the economy.
You are allowing your mind to be turned to your own destruction by
accepting definitions designed to prevent you from thinking about what
is really going on.
In the aggregate, and on net, we are _not_
investing, because we are not saving.
Wrong. We are not investing in genuine capital that enhances
production because the people getting most of the surplus income are
idle, privileged parasites, not the productive.
Does anybody here believe that if we
eliminate cap gains tax altogether we will reverse the trend toward
_dis_saving?
As I explained above, the capital gains tax is a red herring, because
it taxes two opposite things, same as the property tax. You will
never understand any of this as long as you continue to use
definitions designed to make you accept your enslavement as just and
necessary.
-- Roy L
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: novel argument against taxing rents
- From: tonyp
- Re: novel argument against taxing rents
- References:
- Re: novel argument against taxing rents
- From: Les Cargill
- Re: novel argument against taxing rents
- From: tonyp
- Re: novel argument against taxing rents
- Prev by Date: Re: "Earning" One's Wage
- Next by Date: The economic department at GMU
- Previous by thread: Re: novel argument against taxing rents
- Next by thread: Re: novel argument against taxing rents
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
