5 ms·

> It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors. Like

> It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors. Like tax brackets? Treating big things exactly the same as small things seems ideological, not rational.

danuker 4y ago
This is the core of the issue. I have no recourse against Big Tech scamming me. They are an oligopoly sharing the same anti-consumer practices. But if I regularly buy something from a friend, maybe I'm a 10th of their customer base.
- mgraczyk 4y ago
  This doesn't work online, and is the opposite of how fraud works in practice though. Larger sellers have a reputation that they care about and invest in. Small sellers with 10 sales don't care at all, they will make 10 good sales and steal from the 11th for a 10% profit.
  - kjaa 4y ago
    Created an account to say: citation needed. Giants can afford to skimp on any single customer relationship. Go read Amazon reviews, etc... The one-person show with only continental shipping taking PayPal payments for their hobby business absolutely cannot afford to screw over 10% of their customer base. PayPal (or any other provider) has no patience, and anecdotally will always side with the customer. And sure, citation needed, I know :)
  - ROTMetro 4y ago
    Have you used Amazon lately? They not only don't care, they push garbage that is obviously fake in their advertised/recommend blocks. Go search for an SD card on Amazon, and they will recommend a 5000 terabyte SD card that costs $9. I've switched to Best Buy because in this weird dystopian future they are more worthy of my business than Amazon now and I'm not doing business with garbage companies any more.
    - mgraczyk 4y ago
      My personal experience with Amazon in particular has been the opposite of yours. Amazon has completely refunded every defective or damaged products I have ever received. I've done two returns of $100+ items in the past month, in one case the seller disagreed with me and Amazon took my side. In total I've probably had 30 refunds over the past 10 years of which at least 5 were Amazon intervening to prevent the seller from screwing me.
      - someweirdperson 4y ago
        Why do you buy so many defective or damaged products? I cannot remember the last time I had to return something. I rarely buy from Amazon though, and choose quality products from reputable sources, not the cheapest offer. Or maybe I'm just lucky.
        mgraczyk 4y ago
        I buy multiple things online every week, probably 200 per year on average. I also buy a lot of cheap electronics.
        headsoup 4y ago
        Amazon loves you.
      - ROTMetro 4y ago
        I bought studio monitor speakers from Amazon. I received 1. Sent it back. Amazon refused to refund me. I had to point out over and over that from the weight of my package they can easily tell they did not ship me two speakers, only one. Nope. Months later I got an Amazon credit.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      Just recently Amazon allowed me to buy a kindle book for my specific kindle device, which turned out to not be supported. But they still allowed me to purchase and deliver it to this kindle. Only once I went to the device to sync it did I learn that it was incompatible. I was not allowed a refund. Amazon is full of minor counts of fraud like this and at their scale I bet it adds up to real money.
mgraczyk 4y ago
Very different structurally. Tax brackets almost always apply _marginally_. The higher tax bracket only applies to income made above the higher bracket level. Behavior that applies marginally avoids most "discontinuity" and distortions in incentives that come along with them. For example, people whose income increases from $99,999 to $100,001 are only incentivized by a 100,000 bracket to hide the marginal $2, rather than suddenly needing to hide all of their income. EU regulations that apply to companies above a certain size are not like this. Once you pass a certain level, it applies to all the business below the level. That already has a distorting incentive on growth and incentivizes companies to stay small. Maybe that's something you want in this case, but it's almost always an unintended consequence.
- laumars 4y ago
  There are other taxes that don’t function that way though. Like capital gains and stamp duty. Those taxes do frequently get gamed.
  - mgraczyk 4y ago
    And capital gains taxes in particular massively distort incentives. But in that case it's intentional
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    US long term capital gains do work that way: they have marginal brackets just like regular income taxes. (Your starting bracket is calculated based on your regular income, rather than from 0 the way regular income tax brackets work, but otherwise they work the same.) And short term cap gains are just regular income.
    - mgraczyk 4y ago
      I assumed the discontinuity the commenter was referring to here is the >=1 year cutoff for long term capital gains. After one year, all of the gains from the previous year are instantly converted to a lower tax bracket. You're not required to reassess the cost basis at the 1 year mark or anything like that, so there's a huge (intentional) incentive to hold capital for over 1 year.
eastbound 4y ago
Sometimes it’s a fun mind experiment: YES, like tax brackets. Everyone should pay 30k$ per year to the government, no matter how rich or poor, for the services they get, and it would be the literal individual fair share. The percentage-based taxes are already an unfair distribution of cost for the rich, and the progressive taxes amplify it even more. After all, who costs more at school, a Jeff Bezos, or an unruly one?
- sfe22 4y ago
  Good comment, but this will get killed by libs. However you are too high with 30k. I think something like 3k should be plenty to finance our government, and affordable for all. If the rich want a more expensive program that the poor cannot afford then they gotta find another way to finance it, rather than from taxes. Our government is supposed to represent all of its people, not give preferential treatment to the rich, the poor, blacks or whites, retirees or students, renters or landlords etc. Its none of its business.
- Loranubi 4y ago
  However who benefits more? Who relies more on street infrastructure for revenue? The CEO of a car company, or a random worker?
  - sfe22 4y ago
    The government should protect our constitutional rights, provide security from other nations and represent all of us abroad. It shouldn’t build roads, (beachfront) housing, statues or plant trees. Thats up to the people that will benefit from it, whether that be a company, a worker or a town agreeing to do so.

danuker 4y ago

This is the core of the issue. I have no recourse against Big Tech scamming me. They are an oligopoly sharing the same anti-consumer practices. But if I regularly buy something from a friend, maybe I'm a 10th of their customer base.

mgraczyk 4y ago
This doesn't work online, and is the opposite of how fraud works in practice though. Larger sellers have a reputation that they care about and invest in. Small sellers with 10 sales don't care at all, they will make 10 good sales and steal from the 11th for a 10% profit.
- kjaa 4y ago
  Created an account to say: citation needed. Giants can afford to skimp on any single customer relationship. Go read Amazon reviews, etc... The one-person show with only continental shipping taking PayPal payments for their hobby business absolutely cannot afford to screw over 10% of their customer base. PayPal (or any other provider) has no patience, and anecdotally will always side with the customer. And sure, citation needed, I know :)
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  Have you used Amazon lately? They not only don't care, they push garbage that is obviously fake in their advertised/recommend blocks. Go search for an SD card on Amazon, and they will recommend a 5000 terabyte SD card that costs $9. I've switched to Best Buy because in this weird dystopian future they are more worthy of my business than Amazon now and I'm not doing business with garbage companies any more.
  - mgraczyk 4y ago
    My personal experience with Amazon in particular has been the opposite of yours. Amazon has completely refunded every defective or damaged products I have ever received. I've done two returns of $100+ items in the past month, in one case the seller disagreed with me and Amazon took my side. In total I've probably had 30 refunds over the past 10 years of which at least 5 were Amazon intervening to prevent the seller from screwing me.
    - someweirdperson 4y ago
      Why do you buy so many defective or damaged products? I cannot remember the last time I had to return something. I rarely buy from Amazon though, and choose quality products from reputable sources, not the cheapest offer. Or maybe I'm just lucky.
      - mgraczyk 4y ago
        I buy multiple things online every week, probably 200 per year on average. I also buy a lot of cheap electronics.
        headsoup 4y ago
        Amazon loves you.
    - ROTMetro 4y ago
      I bought studio monitor speakers from Amazon. I received 1. Sent it back. Amazon refused to refund me. I had to point out over and over that from the weight of my package they can easily tell they did not ship me two speakers, only one. Nope. Months later I got an Amazon credit.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    Just recently Amazon allowed me to buy a kindle book for my specific kindle device, which turned out to not be supported. But they still allowed me to purchase and deliver it to this kindle. Only once I went to the device to sync it did I learn that it was incompatible. I was not allowed a refund. Amazon is full of minor counts of fraud like this and at their scale I bet it adds up to real money.

mgraczyk 4y ago

Very different structurally. Tax brackets almost always apply _marginally_. The higher tax bracket only applies to income made above the higher bracket level. Behavior that applies marginally avoids most "discontinuity" and distortions in incentives that come along with them. For example, people whose income increases from $99,999 to $100,001 are only incentivized by a 100,000 bracket to hide the marginal $2, rather than suddenly needing to hide all of their income. EU regulations that apply to companies above a certain size are not like this. Once you pass a certain level, it applies to all the business below the level. That already has a distorting incentive on growth and incentivizes companies to stay small. Maybe that's something you want in this case, but it's almost always an unintended consequence.

laumars 4y ago
There are other taxes that don’t function that way though. Like capital gains and stamp duty. Those taxes do frequently get gamed.
- mgraczyk 4y ago
  And capital gains taxes in particular massively distort incentives. But in that case it's intentional
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  US long term capital gains do work that way: they have marginal brackets just like regular income taxes. (Your starting bracket is calculated based on your regular income, rather than from 0 the way regular income tax brackets work, but otherwise they work the same.) And short term cap gains are just regular income.
  - mgraczyk 4y ago
    I assumed the discontinuity the commenter was referring to here is the >=1 year cutoff for long term capital gains. After one year, all of the gains from the previous year are instantly converted to a lower tax bracket. You're not required to reassess the cost basis at the 1 year mark or anything like that, so there's a huge (intentional) incentive to hold capital for over 1 year.

eastbound 4y ago

Sometimes it’s a fun mind experiment: YES, like tax brackets. Everyone should pay 30k$ per year to the government, no matter how rich or poor, for the services they get, and it would be the literal individual fair share. The percentage-based taxes are already an unfair distribution of cost for the rich, and the progressive taxes amplify it even more. After all, who costs more at school, a Jeff Bezos, or an unruly one?

sfe22 4y ago
Good comment, but this will get killed by libs. However you are too high with 30k. I think something like 3k should be plenty to finance our government, and affordable for all. If the rich want a more expensive program that the poor cannot afford then they gotta find another way to finance it, rather than from taxes. Our government is supposed to represent all of its people, not give preferential treatment to the rich, the poor, blacks or whites, retirees or students, renters or landlords etc. Its none of its business.
Loranubi 4y ago
However who benefits more? Who relies more on street infrastructure for revenue? The CEO of a car company, or a random worker?
- sfe22 4y ago
  The government should protect our constitutional rights, provide security from other nations and represent all of us abroad. It shouldn’t build roads, (beachfront) housing, statues or plant trees. Thats up to the people that will benefit from it, whether that be a company, a worker or a town agreeing to do so.