Re: How will taxes improve the economy?

Michael Coburn wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:36:45 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:

Michael Coburn wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:46:22 -0500, Les Cargill wrote:
<snip>
Lemme rephrase: What does Joe Sixpack gain if Biff Moneybags' taxes go
up? Ignore the deficit for the moment - it's surreal money and we can
safely ignore it for now.
No. Ignoring the deficits is not the correct thing to do. The
interest on the debt is a dead weight loss.


If and only if the payments are troublesome. Assuming GDP growth, no
problem. GDP buries the finance costs quite handily. Look at GDP in
1900, 1945 and now.

But you are now running in circles. If taxation is employed properly to direct the productivity of the economy then GDP will be much better than it would have otherwise been.

No question of *that*. It was directed in unproductive ways. This
wasn't felt because there's so much productivity already that
there were no shortages. When a small fraction make everything,
you don't feel it.

Our disagreement is that I see the US government (the representatives of the common people of the USA) as a better judge of how to invest for the sake of Americans than I do the very wealthy that seek to maximize their own gains regardless of or even in spite of the common people.

I agree - we disagree. How, exactly is government supposed to do that? They don't have any means of obtaining the information, organizing
the tasks or evaluating the outcome. Government is inherently
*regulatory* - it deals in "thou shalt not" statements.

Multinational _OWNERS_ are concerned about their wealth maximization and that may well not coincide with the maximization of wealth of the US citizenry.

Meh. It may, or it may not. But what we've seen with "making
public the risk, and making private the reward" is rent seeking
in its purest form.

If a multinational offends me, I can stop trading with it.

I am of the opinion that wealth maximization of the top ranks has been disadvantageous to the majority of the American people.

I'm not. And ,if wealth follows a logistic curve, it
doesn't matter...


This idea that the rich get richer only by creating better lives for the common people does not say much about the American common people in particular.

I'm not sure what you mean - but unless you accept that money
has information content when people spend it...

It has no information content when it's extracted forcibly,
or gained falsely. But when it's used for honest commerce,
we can safely assume that both parties benefit.

The Chinese and the Indians may be loving it.

I doubt that.

But the American middle class is not.

Taxes are the tool by which a better deal for the American middle class can be had.


I still don't know how that works....

--
Les Cargill
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: How will taxes improve the economy?
    ... GDP buries the finance costs quite handily. ... in spite of the common people. ... about their wealth maximization and that may well not coincide with the ... Taxes are the tool by which a better deal for the American middle class ...
    (sci.econ)
  • Re: This racism thing
    ... The use of the term "racism" is overused and a hangup of the PC era. ... the word here is a common term ... Terms used at various points in American history include Negroes, ... "African American" was first suggested in 1988 and endorsed by Jesse ...
    (rec.sport.cricket)
  • Re: I AM SCOTTISH, NOT BRITISH
    ... IMHO, if you're attempting to be ironic with the usage, you mightn't ... of an art form and is common to both England and Scotland. ... American they will tell you how much they earn, ...
    (soc.culture.scottish)
  • Re: "Shared" procedure division code
    ... > English dictionaries tend to evolve as *reflections* of common usage, ... > the Oxford in my opinion. ... You have found that M-W best reflects common current American English...and ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Pay Grade????
    ... American English word. ... It's not only common, it's common in two senses, AFAIK. ... Chuck Riggs ...
    (alt.usage.english)