4 ms·

I like the implied reasoning saying that "Other governments are willing to take a bigger slice of the fruits of your labor, so you have no grounds to complain."

I like the implied reasoning saying that "Other governments are willing to take a bigger slice of the fruits of your labor, so you have no grounds to complain." Except I don't, actually.

tptacek 16y ago
That's not the logic I'm employing, though I see why you think it is. I'd rather point out that those 26 other countries do not appear to suffer a deficit of academics like Mankiw, despite a much stronger incentive for them not to take similar speaking engagements. Of course, the bigger flaw with Mankiw's argument is that it evades the point of those taxes, which is that they buy things that our society has deemed worth having. It is not totally outside the bounds of reason to suggest that we'd have less entrepreneurship if every potential business owner had to worry about providing for 100% of their parents medical expenses. We cannot have everything we want. At some point, the goal of having the "Happiest Possible Greg Mankiw" will have to give way to something like Wildland Fire Management.
- pandafood 16y ago
  Most of those other countries have pretty dismal mathematical output. Not only that, but the country with the best mathematical output of the ones you listed is the UK, which I think has the most "American" tax code. Whenever anyone produces a good mathematician, that mathematician seems to always come to the US. There's a reason Terrence Tao didn't stay in Australia. I'm not actually saying that this is because of our lower tax rate, I'm just pointing out what you likely already knew but disregarded to make a point.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Mankiw isn't a mathematician; he's an economist. Ranked by impact factor, Europe's universities are indeed outclassed by those of the US (attempt to control that by population and by the radically different systems those institutions operate under). I don't think you can really defend the claim that Europe's academic output is "dismal" compared to, like, the Earth, though.
    - pandafood 16y ago
      No, but it is dismal compared to America's, which is what I said. And you said "academics like Mankiw", not "economists like Mankiw." Also, stipulating "by impact factor" seems like a sneaky way of suggesting that that's not a legitimate way to rank. That's fine; it's still true when you rank by "quality of output factor."
      - tptacek 16y ago
        I chose impact factor because it's easy to look up. I suspect any other reasonable metric will produce similar results. I object only to the emotional word "dismal" here. Europe simply isn't a wasteland of academic economic thought.
- hammerdr 16y ago
  I'm not a tax expert but how are you sure that the tax burden for this income bracket is not _more_ in the United States? Sweden may have ~60% income tax but how much of the back-end tax finagling occurs in Sweden compared to the United States? Again, it may very well be more than the claimed 90% tax rate. I also realize the professor has a vested interest (for several reasons) in knocking the tax cut expiration. But the United States tax system is complex beyond belief and I think any comparison with other countries is never simple. Edit: Or higher than the 'real' tax rate if the professor is pushing the numbers in his favor (likely).
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Without doing the research to prove it, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the tax burden on the top 1% of earners in the 26 countries I cited with higher average tax burdens is more onerous than the tax burden on the top 1% of earners in the US, because most (all?) of them have more steeply progressive tax systems. The "complexity" of the US tax system is orthogonal to the issue we're discussing.
    - hammerdr 16y ago
      Without doing the research to prove it http://www.photius.com/rankings/tax_burden_country_ranks_2009.html http://www.photius.com/rankings/tax_burden_country_ranks_200... You'll notice that US/NYC is 21 and US/IL (where I'm at) is 35. You should also notice that many of the >35 burdens have a large VAT/Sales Tax which has less impact on the top 1% of earners. Again, I'm not an expert in these matters. And, in any giving country the professor may be paying more in taxes. However, to systematically dismiss the tax burden of the United States because we have a low income tax isn't taking the full picture into account.
      - tptacek 16y ago
        Top earners who live in NYC (not NY, mind you, but NYC, which has a harsh city tax) are marginally (#21 instead of #26) worse off in this analysis, but the entire rest of the country is significantly (#35 instead of #26) better off. Despite the fact that you've provided evidence that enhances my argument and not yours, I'm willing to stipulate that it's a wash.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  At some point, the goal of having the "Happiest Possible Greg Mankiw" will have to give way to something like Wildland Fire Management. It is less than honest to suggest that the tax increases we are discussing will be used for things like fire protection. The vast majority of government spending these days is not providing public goods. Police, fire, defense, the CDC and other public goods make up a relatively small portion of the budget. For the most part, the extra money Mankiw pays will simply be redistributed to people less productive than him (federal bureaucrats, people capable of working but who don't wish to, corporations less productive than competitors/alternatives). If you wish to argue that those are useful purposes, be my guest.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    You're right, I was being cute. However, the dominant component of "people capable of working but who don't wish to" is --- by my casual analysis (please correct me) --- retirees on social security. It's also dubious to suggest that if we drastically cut back on the social safety net that the entire entrepreneurial class would necessarily fare better; many of us[1] would have to redirect our efforts and risk tolerances to fund our parents retirement. We probably agree more than we disagree on the subject of civil servant pensions. I am willing to accept that there is no tax/spend scheme that is ever going to make me entirely comfortable (a single trip to the DMV illustrates this nicely) without rejecting entirely the idea that we should trade off some personal incentives for our collective well being. [1] Not me, though.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      You are correct - retirees together with the poor (90% of whom don't work full time). It would not be necessary for young people to fund their parent's retirement, their parents would not necessarily need to retire. A large number of older people are capable of working, and the latest projections suggest that this trend will only increase in the future: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/329/5997/1287 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/329/5997/1287
      - 16y ago
- gojomo 16y ago
  It's not just 'Mankiw Happiness'; it's 'Mankiw Production'. I might be indifferent to his happiness, but I want him producing.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Can we split the difference and call it "Mankiw Incentive"? I say "Mankiw Happiness" because it sounds funny to me, but we're not actually talking about Mankiw Production.

I like the implied reasoning saying that "Other governments are willing to take a bigger slice of the fruits of your labor, so you have no grounds to complain." Except I don't, actually.

tptacek 16y ago

That's not the logic I'm employing, though I see why you think it is. I'd rather point out that those 26 other countries do not appear to suffer a deficit of academics like Mankiw, despite a much stronger incentive for them not to take similar speaking engagements. Of course, the bigger flaw with Mankiw's argument is that it evades the point of those taxes, which is that they buy things that our society has deemed worth having. It is not totally outside the bounds of reason to suggest that we'd have less entrepreneurship if every potential business owner had to worry about providing for 100% of their parents medical expenses. We cannot have everything we want. At some point, the goal of having the "Happiest Possible Greg Mankiw" will have to give way to something like Wildland Fire Management.

pandafood 16y ago
Most of those other countries have pretty dismal mathematical output. Not only that, but the country with the best mathematical output of the ones you listed is the UK, which I think has the most "American" tax code. Whenever anyone produces a good mathematician, that mathematician seems to always come to the US. There's a reason Terrence Tao didn't stay in Australia. I'm not actually saying that this is because of our lower tax rate, I'm just pointing out what you likely already knew but disregarded to make a point.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Mankiw isn't a mathematician; he's an economist. Ranked by impact factor, Europe's universities are indeed outclassed by those of the US (attempt to control that by population and by the radically different systems those institutions operate under). I don't think you can really defend the claim that Europe's academic output is "dismal" compared to, like, the Earth, though.
  - pandafood 16y ago
    No, but it is dismal compared to America's, which is what I said. And you said "academics like Mankiw", not "economists like Mankiw." Also, stipulating "by impact factor" seems like a sneaky way of suggesting that that's not a legitimate way to rank. That's fine; it's still true when you rank by "quality of output factor."
    - tptacek 16y ago
      I chose impact factor because it's easy to look up. I suspect any other reasonable metric will produce similar results. I object only to the emotional word "dismal" here. Europe simply isn't a wasteland of academic economic thought.
hammerdr 16y ago
I'm not a tax expert but how are you sure that the tax burden for this income bracket is not _more_ in the United States? Sweden may have ~60% income tax but how much of the back-end tax finagling occurs in Sweden compared to the United States? Again, it may very well be more than the claimed 90% tax rate. I also realize the professor has a vested interest (for several reasons) in knocking the tax cut expiration. But the United States tax system is complex beyond belief and I think any comparison with other countries is never simple. Edit: Or higher than the 'real' tax rate if the professor is pushing the numbers in his favor (likely).
- tptacek 16y ago
  Without doing the research to prove it, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that the tax burden on the top 1% of earners in the 26 countries I cited with higher average tax burdens is more onerous than the tax burden on the top 1% of earners in the US, because most (all?) of them have more steeply progressive tax systems. The "complexity" of the US tax system is orthogonal to the issue we're discussing.
  - hammerdr 16y ago
    Without doing the research to prove it http://www.photius.com/rankings/tax_burden_country_ranks_2009.html http://www.photius.com/rankings/tax_burden_country_ranks_200... You'll notice that US/NYC is 21 and US/IL (where I'm at) is 35. You should also notice that many of the >35 burdens have a large VAT/Sales Tax which has less impact on the top 1% of earners. Again, I'm not an expert in these matters. And, in any giving country the professor may be paying more in taxes. However, to systematically dismiss the tax burden of the United States because we have a low income tax isn't taking the full picture into account.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      Top earners who live in NYC (not NY, mind you, but NYC, which has a harsh city tax) are marginally (#21 instead of #26) worse off in this analysis, but the entire rest of the country is significantly (#35 instead of #26) better off. Despite the fact that you've provided evidence that enhances my argument and not yours, I'm willing to stipulate that it's a wash.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
At some point, the goal of having the "Happiest Possible Greg Mankiw" will have to give way to something like Wildland Fire Management. It is less than honest to suggest that the tax increases we are discussing will be used for things like fire protection. The vast majority of government spending these days is not providing public goods. Police, fire, defense, the CDC and other public goods make up a relatively small portion of the budget. For the most part, the extra money Mankiw pays will simply be redistributed to people less productive than him (federal bureaucrats, people capable of working but who don't wish to, corporations less productive than competitors/alternatives). If you wish to argue that those are useful purposes, be my guest.
- tptacek 16y ago
  You're right, I was being cute. However, the dominant component of "people capable of working but who don't wish to" is --- by my casual analysis (please correct me) --- retirees on social security. It's also dubious to suggest that if we drastically cut back on the social safety net that the entire entrepreneurial class would necessarily fare better; many of us[1] would have to redirect our efforts and risk tolerances to fund our parents retirement. We probably agree more than we disagree on the subject of civil servant pensions. I am willing to accept that there is no tax/spend scheme that is ever going to make me entirely comfortable (a single trip to the DMV illustrates this nicely) without rejecting entirely the idea that we should trade off some personal incentives for our collective well being. [1] Not me, though.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    You are correct - retirees together with the poor (90% of whom don't work full time). It would not be necessary for young people to fund their parent's retirement, their parents would not necessarily need to retire. A large number of older people are capable of working, and the latest projections suggest that this trend will only increase in the future: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/329/5997/1287 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/329/5997/1287
    - 16y ago
gojomo 16y ago
It's not just 'Mankiw Happiness'; it's 'Mankiw Production'. I might be indifferent to his happiness, but I want him producing.
- tptacek 16y ago
  Can we split the difference and call it "Mankiw Incentive"? I say "Mankiw Happiness" because it sounds funny to me, but we're not actually talking about Mankiw Production.