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Well they could increase the amount of public spending and increase the tax rates for the top brackets and it has been historically in periods where rates of in

Well they could increase the amount of public spending and increase the tax rates for the top brackets and it has been historically in periods where rates of income inequality have gone down. But no, for some ridiculous reason those ideas seem to be unacceptable with the Overton Window defined by mass-media (conglomerate-owned, of course) and economists who propose small-state solutions.

andrenth 9y ago
If inequality goes down because the rich become less rich, is that a win?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- s_kilk 9y ago
  Yes
- luckydata 9y ago
  I would say by now you have a pretty good idea of what people around here think but... yeah, if the rich get a little less rich things are a lot better for everyone. It's the unbalance, not the total that makes life hell for the less well off.
  - brucephillips 9y ago
    How?
- analog31 9y ago
  In my view, the answer could be yes, not by itself but only depending on the side effects. Some possibilities: 1. Redistribution of wealth carries a corresponding redistribution of political power. 2. The quality of life for the bottom quartile (or choose your threshold) is increased by more than the corresponding decrease for the rich. 3. Redistribution increases consumer spending, which stimulates growth, if for instance the economy is in a state of poor demand. Needless to say, these are all speculative on my part.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  The people that answer yes to you might not even realize they are actually part of the richest group, particularly since software engineers are in the top 10% of income in the US.
  - llukas 9y ago
    Except that income distribution is skewed so much that top 1% top 0.1% it is really what matters in terms of inequality.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      Every single person can claim there is someone richer than them, up until you get to the richest 10 people. If you have 100k in your bank account, the difference between you and someone living on 2 dollars a day is a vast enough inequality.
      - llukas 9y ago
        Sounds like perfect argument for ultra rich to make middle class to pick up the bill. https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/14/worlds-richest-wealth-credit-suisse https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/14/worlds-ri...
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    Maybe we just see the overall trend and its global impacts, and we don’t think buying a luxury fallout shelter is the same response.
  - Daishiman 9y ago
    The very top of the bracket (0.1%) is the one paying proportionally far less than the rest of the upper class, given their access to all sorts of accounting tricks and exemptions that you have when you are making money from capital gains or when you have tons of active assets to shuffle money around.
    - 9y ago
- Daishiman 9y ago
  If you're asking seriously, the answer is: absolutely. The countries with the highest levels of quality of level and most socioeconomic mobility have very high levels of taxation for the wealthiest. And they are doing just fine.
  - junkscience2017 9y ago
    that includes the US, where taxation still is mostly borne by the rich
    - Retric 9y ago
      Nope, US phases out social security taxes and has vastly lower rates for capital gains etc. If you look at total earnings vs. total taxes paid including non income taxes the rich pay a lower share than the middle class. Remember gas taxes are just as much a tax as income or property tax.
  - brucephillips 9y ago
    GP said nothing about wealth distribution, which is what you're describing.
- Retric 9y ago
  If no other changes occur then yes because it reduces the concentration of power.
- justicezyx 9y ago
  By definition rich is relative, more inequity means more rich, and yes, lower inequality means less rich.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    Depends of the definition. If every piece of food in the world were burnt, there would be no relative poverty, but there would be famine and death immediately. Both relative and absolute poverty matter and have different causes and solutions.
madengr 9y ago
So what’s the limit to taxes? Half the people in the country don’t pay any federal income tax.
- Daishiman 9y ago
  It makes sense to have the poorest not pay taxes when the marginal utility of every dollar they lose to taxes is so high and when the poor and middle class are the engines of consumerism. A dollar taxes to the top 1% that owns more than 50% of all assets, in contrast, loses far less from taxation.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    The problem with this line of argument is the moral base it stands on: pure utilitarianism. It stands on the idea that the tax is more effective to leevy and that it will produce less suffering (to the rich that pay it). But unfortunately, reality shows you the actual utilitarian application: the rich spend lots of resources to avoid, lobby and protect themselves from taxation, making it hard to grab and cause lot of apparent pain. But a sales tax on food, and a tax on income hits the poor, which can't defend themselves as well, and don't perceive the pain attributable to the tax. If your stance is that taxes should be utilitarian, you already have an application.
    - Daishiman 9y ago
      Well, given that the CEOs of the many multinationals who are benefited by the latest tax cuts in the US have explicitly said that they will not use the extra money for investments but rather just to increase profits, it stands to show that people will not necessarily engage in productive investments given more free capital unless absolutely necessary to compete, which is line with what some economists have mentioned on this.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        If the government taxed that money away, maybe half of it would go to new military planes, so its not really that efficient either.
dnautics 9y ago
Explain how increasing public spending will redistribute wealth. More likely than not it will go to contractors who have gotten good at obtaining grants because they were good at obtaining grants which made them wealthy and allowed them to buy consultants to help them win the next grant.
- Daishiman 9y ago
  Oh come on don't make these idiotic arguments that forget that pretty much all Western European nations that have low levels of income inequality have done so through massive taxation and the creation of public goods and benefits that allow them to support a highly developed society. Free universities, free healthcare, long paternity leaves, environmental protection and subsidies to underdeveloped areas are all factors that are proven to have helped substantially to reduce inequality and increase social mobility. I seriously can't stop marveling at how people can defend an increasingly unequal world when there is a shrinking middle class and a more fragile position for the most vulnerable.
  - dnautics 9y ago
    You think that's sustainable? Ithink you will find that even though all of the countries in Europe have basically free social services, the divide between the rich and poor is not decreasing in all of them. What does correlate with it is institutional corruption and confiscatory monetary policy ( the nordics are not on the euro, which is for now better than the pound). People in the nordics are doing way better than in Europe they in turn are doing better than the British The funny thing is that the world itself is not increasingly unequal, the global gini coefficient is coming down, mostly due to arbitrage - migration away from countries with corruption and poor, confiscatory monetary policy to ones where the confiscation is slow enough to be generational.
    - Daishiman 9y ago
      The Nordics are doing way better precisely because they have the highest taxation rate and the largest states. Statoil is a massive mixed enterprise and it's doing just fine, and unlike the rest of the countries where wealth from oil gets funneled overseas or goes to a few corporations, it goes into the largest sovereign fund in the planet to safeguard people's wealth. The Nordic nations have the proportionally massive states and nobody's saying that they would be better off with fewer public services... because they wouldn't, and it's obvious to anyone who wants to make the debate global.
rayiner 9y ago
Increase public spending on what? NY MTA workers making $400/hour? On teachers (who, by virtue of being college educated, are by definition better off than most of the population)? On healthcare (i.e. to doctors and drug companies)? Heck, even if you give cash directly to poor people, it'll go immediately back into the hands of the well-off in the form of rent in overpriced cities.
- AFNobody 9y ago
  1) Public Option for Healthcare 2) National Healthcare Standards that end the balkanization of the healthcare market. 3) Infrastructure maintenance deficits (we've fallen really far behind on that). 4) Basic Research in basically every field. 5) NASA. 6) Breaking oligopolies/monopolies 7) Public Affordable Housing. (i.e. High Density housing projects that otherwise charge market rates to cover costs.) I'm not even sure why the idea of doing the first 6 things are even "political issues" that require discussion, to be frank. There is something seriously wrong when basic maintenance and balancing the scales of power to something below "lol rent seeking" qualifies as "increased public spending" because basically nothing is done in those areas.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > 1) Public Option for Healthcare So more money goes to doctors, who are in the top 10%? > 3) Infrastructure maintenance deficits (we've fallen really far behind on that). So more money to MTA workers and administrators making $100/hour: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-.... > 4) Basic Research in basically every field. > 5) NASA. So more money to privileged, highly-educated folks who are in the top 10%? These proposals just benefit the top 10% instead of the top 0.1%. (It exemplifies American politics, which has largely become a war between the top 10% and the top 0.1%, with nobody looking out for the interests of the bottom half). It won't reduce the inequality that the article is talking about, which is caused by the fact that the bottom 90% have little bargaining power in a world dominated by automation and computers. It would be far better to just give poor people money. Or better, yet, put the money in trust funds for them.

andrenth 9y ago

If inequality goes down because the rich become less rich, is that a win?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
s_kilk 9y ago
Yes
luckydata 9y ago
I would say by now you have a pretty good idea of what people around here think but... yeah, if the rich get a little less rich things are a lot better for everyone. It's the unbalance, not the total that makes life hell for the less well off.
- brucephillips 9y ago
  How?
analog31 9y ago
In my view, the answer could be yes, not by itself but only depending on the side effects. Some possibilities: 1. Redistribution of wealth carries a corresponding redistribution of political power. 2. The quality of life for the bottom quartile (or choose your threshold) is increased by more than the corresponding decrease for the rich. 3. Redistribution increases consumer spending, which stimulates growth, if for instance the economy is in a state of poor demand. Needless to say, these are all speculative on my part.
conanbatt 9y ago
The people that answer yes to you might not even realize they are actually part of the richest group, particularly since software engineers are in the top 10% of income in the US.
- llukas 9y ago
  Except that income distribution is skewed so much that top 1% top 0.1% it is really what matters in terms of inequality.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    Every single person can claim there is someone richer than them, up until you get to the richest 10 people. If you have 100k in your bank account, the difference between you and someone living on 2 dollars a day is a vast enough inequality.
    - llukas 9y ago
      Sounds like perfect argument for ultra rich to make middle class to pick up the bill. https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/14/worlds-richest-wealth-credit-suisse https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/14/worlds-ri...
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Maybe we just see the overall trend and its global impacts, and we don’t think buying a luxury fallout shelter is the same response.
- Daishiman 9y ago
  The very top of the bracket (0.1%) is the one paying proportionally far less than the rest of the upper class, given their access to all sorts of accounting tricks and exemptions that you have when you are making money from capital gains or when you have tons of active assets to shuffle money around.
  - 9y ago
Daishiman 9y ago
If you're asking seriously, the answer is: absolutely. The countries with the highest levels of quality of level and most socioeconomic mobility have very high levels of taxation for the wealthiest. And they are doing just fine.
- junkscience2017 9y ago
  that includes the US, where taxation still is mostly borne by the rich
  - Retric 9y ago
    Nope, US phases out social security taxes and has vastly lower rates for capital gains etc. If you look at total earnings vs. total taxes paid including non income taxes the rich pay a lower share than the middle class. Remember gas taxes are just as much a tax as income or property tax.
- brucephillips 9y ago
  GP said nothing about wealth distribution, which is what you're describing.
Retric 9y ago
If no other changes occur then yes because it reduces the concentration of power.
justicezyx 9y ago
By definition rich is relative, more inequity means more rich, and yes, lower inequality means less rich.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  Depends of the definition. If every piece of food in the world were burnt, there would be no relative poverty, but there would be famine and death immediately. Both relative and absolute poverty matter and have different causes and solutions.

madengr 9y ago

So what’s the limit to taxes? Half the people in the country don’t pay any federal income tax.

Daishiman 9y ago
It makes sense to have the poorest not pay taxes when the marginal utility of every dollar they lose to taxes is so high and when the poor and middle class are the engines of consumerism. A dollar taxes to the top 1% that owns more than 50% of all assets, in contrast, loses far less from taxation.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  The problem with this line of argument is the moral base it stands on: pure utilitarianism. It stands on the idea that the tax is more effective to leevy and that it will produce less suffering (to the rich that pay it). But unfortunately, reality shows you the actual utilitarian application: the rich spend lots of resources to avoid, lobby and protect themselves from taxation, making it hard to grab and cause lot of apparent pain. But a sales tax on food, and a tax on income hits the poor, which can't defend themselves as well, and don't perceive the pain attributable to the tax. If your stance is that taxes should be utilitarian, you already have an application.
  - Daishiman 9y ago
    Well, given that the CEOs of the many multinationals who are benefited by the latest tax cuts in the US have explicitly said that they will not use the extra money for investments but rather just to increase profits, it stands to show that people will not necessarily engage in productive investments given more free capital unless absolutely necessary to compete, which is line with what some economists have mentioned on this.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      If the government taxed that money away, maybe half of it would go to new military planes, so its not really that efficient either.

dnautics 9y ago

Explain how increasing public spending will redistribute wealth. More likely than not it will go to contractors who have gotten good at obtaining grants because they were good at obtaining grants which made them wealthy and allowed them to buy consultants to help them win the next grant.

Daishiman 9y ago
Oh come on don't make these idiotic arguments that forget that pretty much all Western European nations that have low levels of income inequality have done so through massive taxation and the creation of public goods and benefits that allow them to support a highly developed society. Free universities, free healthcare, long paternity leaves, environmental protection and subsidies to underdeveloped areas are all factors that are proven to have helped substantially to reduce inequality and increase social mobility. I seriously can't stop marveling at how people can defend an increasingly unequal world when there is a shrinking middle class and a more fragile position for the most vulnerable.
- dnautics 9y ago
  You think that's sustainable? Ithink you will find that even though all of the countries in Europe have basically free social services, the divide between the rich and poor is not decreasing in all of them. What does correlate with it is institutional corruption and confiscatory monetary policy ( the nordics are not on the euro, which is for now better than the pound). People in the nordics are doing way better than in Europe they in turn are doing better than the British The funny thing is that the world itself is not increasingly unequal, the global gini coefficient is coming down, mostly due to arbitrage - migration away from countries with corruption and poor, confiscatory monetary policy to ones where the confiscation is slow enough to be generational.
  - Daishiman 9y ago
    The Nordics are doing way better precisely because they have the highest taxation rate and the largest states. Statoil is a massive mixed enterprise and it's doing just fine, and unlike the rest of the countries where wealth from oil gets funneled overseas or goes to a few corporations, it goes into the largest sovereign fund in the planet to safeguard people's wealth. The Nordic nations have the proportionally massive states and nobody's saying that they would be better off with fewer public services... because they wouldn't, and it's obvious to anyone who wants to make the debate global.

rayiner 9y ago

Increase public spending on what? NY MTA workers making $400/hour? On teachers (who, by virtue of being college educated, are by definition better off than most of the population)? On healthcare (i.e. to doctors and drug companies)? Heck, even if you give cash directly to poor people, it'll go immediately back into the hands of the well-off in the form of rent in overpriced cities.

AFNobody 9y ago
1) Public Option for Healthcare 2) National Healthcare Standards that end the balkanization of the healthcare market. 3) Infrastructure maintenance deficits (we've fallen really far behind on that). 4) Basic Research in basically every field. 5) NASA. 6) Breaking oligopolies/monopolies 7) Public Affordable Housing. (i.e. High Density housing projects that otherwise charge market rates to cover costs.) I'm not even sure why the idea of doing the first 6 things are even "political issues" that require discussion, to be frank. There is something seriously wrong when basic maintenance and balancing the scales of power to something below "lol rent seeking" qualifies as "increased public spending" because basically nothing is done in those areas.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > 1) Public Option for Healthcare So more money goes to doctors, who are in the top 10%? > 3) Infrastructure maintenance deficits (we've fallen really far behind on that). So more money to MTA workers and administrators making $100/hour: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-.... > 4) Basic Research in basically every field. > 5) NASA. So more money to privileged, highly-educated folks who are in the top 10%? These proposals just benefit the top 10% instead of the top 0.1%. (It exemplifies American politics, which has largely become a war between the top 10% and the top 0.1%, with nobody looking out for the interests of the bottom half). It won't reduce the inequality that the article is talking about, which is caused by the fact that the bottom 90% have little bargaining power in a world dominated by automation and computers. It would be far better to just give poor people money. Or better, yet, put the money in trust funds for them.