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"strong encouragement not to do that" I would expect that if governments had the same fiscal responsibility as businesses then they would have about the same f

• JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > If governments had the same failure rate as businesses we would be up in arms. So governments should take less risks, and in particular incur even less debt. > That is not a sign of 'extreme fiscal irresponsibility'. I'm not talking about failure rates, I'm talking about utter failure to spend within means, or even recognize a boundary of means. > You make it sound like political viewpoints should not be a consideration. Not at all; rather, I was suggesting that citing one economist to support a political viewpoint doesn't make that viewpoint right, and in particular doesn't provide any evidence whatsoever about whether that viewpoint is ethically right. > Since you appear to support special non-profit status for schools I wasn't taking a stance on that here; rather, I was suggesting that it doesn't make sense to specifically call out private universities for consideration of revoking that status, without broader consideration of non-profits in general, simply to prop up public universities. More specifically, I was complaining about the entitled stance taken in the article.
  • dalke 11y ago
    "I was suggesting that citing one economist ..." My comments are a reply to your earlier statement "Looking at tax you wish you could collect but have no legal right to and salivating over it makes as much sense as looking at the contents of someone else's bank account and wishing it was yours." I pointed out that there are countries where this is a legal right, and where there are people who believe it makes sense. (With the proviso that it appears to contribute to capital flight, so requires a global wealth tax; which Picketty believes is more Utopian than politically achievable.) Certainly the utility of such a law is up for debate, but your starting position was that the idea was beyond the pale, which is not correct. "it doesn't make sense to specifically call out private universities for consideration of revoking that status, without broader consideration of non-profits in general" Page 2 of the commentary does consider that point. I quote: > A tax like Schneider’s would still raise other philosophical and logistical questions. For starters, why tax giant endowments at colleges but not other nonprofits? The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York commands a roughly $3 billion endowment—it’s hard to think of a coherent reason why it should escape the Internal Revenue Service if, say, Fordham University in the Bronx (endowment: $675 million) can’t. It then mentions two other difficulties with the idea ("why take a cut of wealth from colleges when we don’t do it to individuals?" and "unintended consequences"). It may not cover it in the depth you want, but that's hardly reason to say that it doesn't consider non-profits in general.
    • JoshTriplett 11y ago
      > With the proviso that it appears to contribute to capital flight, so requires a global wealth tax; which Picketty believes is more Utopian than politically achievable. Or perhaps it's not politically achievable specifically because there are enough people who would consider it dystopian instead, which is precisely why those people would "contribute to capital flight" if such a tax was passed. > Certainly the utility of such a law is up for debate, but your starting position was that the idea was beyond the pale, which is not correct. I find it "beyond the pale" that what to do with other people's money is "up for debate" by anyone. My position remains that taxing an endowment is at least as unacceptable as taxing wealth in general (which, fortunately, there's significant opposition to), if not even more so because the endowment is intended specifically for charitable purposes.