9 ms·

Taxing Growth

22 points by Incerto 10mo ago

__s 10mo ago
Pushing for flat tax, but no mention of Andorra or Isle of Man. Guess those aren't considered growth centers to support their argument
- rtkwe 10mo ago
  Well they clearly haven't flat tax deregulated enough! /s
  - blitzar 10mo ago
    Its not flat enough
    - rtkwe 10mo ago
      The only line flat enough for industry to not come back asking for more cuts will be the flat strike through line on any taxes that they pay.
      - blitzar 10mo ago
        I would like to introduce a concept - negative taxation - you (the taxpayer) pay us a royalty for gracing you with our presence.
        __s 10mo ago
        you're describing subsidies
        rtkwe 10mo ago
        I think we can presume they know that and are just continuing the fun slightly snarky framing. There are also minor differences in implementation between negative taxes (credits beyond obligations which can happen in the US though they're very, very rare) and subsidies.
actionfromafar 10mo ago
Can’t tell if satire. Maybe skipping to cars section.
- smallmancontrov 10mo ago
  They hit every one of the neoliberal memes: * Prosperity gospel (as if developed economies have slow growth for want of just one more tax break on the wealthy. Just one more! That'll fix it right up!) * Laffer curve invoked without any attempt to determine where on it current policy lies * Saving the whales is killing the economy (they were spiders in this example -- point for satire?) * Trying to sneak financial deregulation under the skirts of the above * Opaque economic growth model with self-serving result presented as factual * The rich will leave (as if the pressure isn't coming from their pumped assets and a firesale wouldn't fix this) * Tut-tutting about debt to pretend at fiscal conservatism * 100% attention on upper class concerns, 0% on lower class concerns * Upper-class conservative-coded hobby talk free of any concern that it might give away the above I think they were earnest and just wildly out of touch, though, given all the allusions to 15 year old economic discussions. That's when these memes were at their peak. They simply don't understand the credibility hit they have taken since then. I'd love to see a conversation between them and Gary Stevens. These memes are his origin story.
tdhz77 10mo ago
This is llm hallucination too? Old ideas and goes back to a system that was in place in the 1800’s. It didn’t go well. Who are these people that peddle this every 20-30 years or so? Opportunist.
hcknwscommenter 10mo ago
Flat tax and dregulation. Pretending like they are new ideas.
- embedding-shape 10mo ago
  Every time someone shares something it has to be new, otherwise it's not worthy of your attention? Couldn't you at least provide some constructive criticism why the argument falls short in your mind, instead of the sharing the first knee-jerky reaction that popped up in your head that just touches the surface?
  - actionfromafar 10mo ago
    But the episode has just as little behind their claims. Tech sector is up. Why? Because of deregulation. Ok, how? Nah, moving on to classic cars.
    - embedding-shape 10mo ago
      Ok, share those opinions, views and perspectives then, instead of just attacking the surface of "Well, nothing here is new so no one should care".
  - floundy 10mo ago
    The quality of discourse on HN has been nearing the bottom of the barrel (read: mostly indistinguishable from Reddit) since the pandemic. It’s very rare these days to see citations or even arguments that explain personal reasoning. Just like Reddit and Facebook, commenters mostly write what they think or feel as if it were unyielding fact, and the most common denominator (read: boring, derivative, often oversimplified assumptions) rise to the top via the voting system.
    - embedding-shape 10mo ago
      > The quality of discourse on HN has been nearing the bottom of the barrel (read: mostly indistinguishable from Reddit) since the pandemic That's very much not true, and it's also a tale as old as HN at this point. Since I started commenting on HN in 2010 sometime, the quality had stayed more or less the same, and hasn't drastically dropped in quality like Reddit has done as it grew. Also, the amount of comments that complain that HN is turning into Reddit seems to have stayed at the same level of frequency too, fwiw.
cramcgrab 10mo ago
Another political post on a tech news website. Closing the tab for the day.
- dspillett 10mo ago
  Economics and politics affect tech, tech affects economics and politics.
cpursley 10mo ago
A number of countries that implemented flat tax and simplified the tax code and reduced loopholes actually increased tax revenues (Estonia, Russia, Bulgaria come to mind). Those are not their only sources of tax revenue, of course - but interesting experiment (make it simpler and less loopholes and no insane concept of "tax returns").
briteside 10mo ago
Lol how is this #1
- floundy 10mo ago
  Because topics like these always attract some Very Smart People to comment and engage in order to share their Very Correct Opinions on macroeconomics and politics.
CPLX 10mo ago
It's amazing how every economic issue can be solved by demanding less of the rich and powerful and demanding more of the poor.
mytailorisrich 10mo ago
GDP per capita has been declining in the UK and this is indeed a big issue (people are getting poorer) hidden behind the marginal growth of the overall GDP created by high immigration. This is linked to a long-standing productivity problem. Some of the ideas bring us back to the Brexit debate. Being outside the EU allows a freedom of action but, depending how far deregulation and law taxes are taken, that also means retaliatory barriers from the EU, which is still the largest trading partner (41% of exports, twice the volume to the 2nd export market, which is the US).
- graemep 10mo ago
  > GDP per capita has been declining in the UK not true: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CN?locations=GB https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CN?location... There were declines in 2009 andd 2020, for reasons that out to be fairly obvious, but overall consistent growth > that also means retaliatory barriers from the EU, which is still the largest trading partner (41% of exports, twice the volume to the 2nd export market, which is the US However, trade with the EU was declining as a proportion of total trade even before Brexit, is exaggerated by transshipment, and does not have as significant benefits as trading with economies with different strengths (i.e. more comparative advantage)
  - blitzar 10mo ago
    > but overall consistent growth Gunna need to inflation adjust that one bud, its not decline, but it is not great. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KN?locations=GB https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KN?location...
    - mytailorisrich 10mo ago
      That shows a decline compared to 2019: 35,193 in 2019, 35,108 in 2024. Overall GDP is up over the period because of population growth. All as per my original comment.
      - 10mo ago
graemep 10mo ago
The problem with the UK tax system is not that it is progressive. In fact, once you add NI it is not all that strongly progressive. The problem is that complexity of tax law, the number of loopholes, incentives, refunds.... The really big problem is that people on low incomes do not have an incentive to work because the loss of benefits means they are barely any better off from working. That is a strong argument for UBI, or at least a much slower rate of loss of benefits so people keep more of their income. There are a lot of imprecise and misleading claims made here, for example: > people who are talented, people who are wealthy, people who have capital, people who have entrepreneurial skills, they can move. Talent, wealth, and entrepreneurial skills are not the same thing. Wealth is often inherited, talented people may be employed and not all talents are all that portable. While capital can be moved the assets that it is tied up in cannot - you can see your business and move, but that just means someone else buys your business. A wealthy person does not have to live where their investments are.
- actionfromafar 10mo ago
  Read a comment some stories back, that all loss of benefits should be gradual on a curve, never with cliffs. So that you'd pay a few hundred thousand in taxes and get a benefits check for 1 dollar, or pound or whatever.
  - graemep 10mo ago
    The UK does not have many cliffs, but the curve is too steep. There is also a very high effective marginal for high earners in certain circumstances (particular range of incomes, have children). People complain about his as well as the steep loss of benefits. Its very rarely the same people complaining about both.
simgt 10mo ago
> Please write a transcript of an interview with an imaginary economist who considers that neoliberalism doesn't work because we haven't been far enough and blame any sort of regulations. Don't mention any material constraints like the availability of cheap energy sources. Don't mention libertarianism. Please also provide a prompt for the TTS model (the discussion needs to sound serious and academic).
throw0101d 10mo ago
> It’s core argument is simple: in a world where talent and capital move easily […] I'm not sure about the talent part: unless you're strictly talking about remote work, going to a new country is not what I would think of as "easy". > Doug explained why a staged path to a 20% flat tax […] It seems to me that flat taxes ignore the marginal utility of every new dollar of income. What exactly is having the top income earners keep more money gotten society? It seems like not much besides more inequality (which has probably helped fuel political dissatisfaction): > This paper uses data from 18 OECD countries over the last five decades to estimate the causal effect of major tax cuts for the rich on income inequality, economic growth, and unemployment. First, we use a new encompassing measure of taxes on the rich to identify instances of major reduction in tax progressivity. Then, we look at the causal effect of these episodes on economic outcomes by applying a nonparametric generalization of the difference-in-differences indicator that implements Mahalanobis matching in panel data analysis. We find that major reforms reducing taxes on the rich lead to higher income inequality as measured by the top 1% share of pre-tax national income. The effect remains stable in the medium term. In contrast, such reforms do not have any significant effect on economic growth and unemployment. * https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/107919/ https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/107919/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics
- nathan_compton 10mo ago
  I'm pretty sure that wealth accumulated by the very rich at the expense of the poor is bad for total economic development because we drastically under-estimate the value of properly developing human beings. We see enormous flourishing in society whenever labor is given more power for whatever reason (usually mass deaths) because this increases the amount of resources which flow towards raising children, who then become productive members of society. In times of weak labor power, average people are squeezed tight and less resources flow to children, which fucks shit up. I think we are seeing that right now in the U.S. - education is nickle and dimed to shit, wages aren't enough to support children, let alone let them flourish, and the general "vibe" is so bad that people don't even want to have kids. Meanwhile rich people are richer than ever.
  - 10mo ago
blitzar 10mo ago
> In 2015, Douglas McWilliams of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which is based on Old Street, authored The Flat White Economy: How the Digital Economy Is Transforming London & Other Cities of the Future. > Now, let me just quote some statistics. We have the most successful tech sector in Europe. The reason why is we are outside the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, and the AI Act, which are three European acts which heavily constrain tech growth in the EU. As a result, the thing that I call the flat-white economy ... Digital Markets Act (2022), Digital Services Act (2022) and AI Act (2024) - these regulations are obviously totally different to the UK versions - Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (2024), Online Safety Act (2023). The reason why something was worthy of a book in 2015 is something that happend in 2022 / 2024, the car in the car section must be a delorean. There are a lot of good reasons, making stuff up makes me wonder about the validity of the remainder of the arguments.
kyledrake 10mo ago
> Finally to perhaps lighten the mood, rather than the usual book recommendations, the three of them discuss their favourite cars. I'm sure they're talking about the 8 million dollar Porto Embargo or whatever, but I would love one day to hear a podcast discussing the genius of the Toyota Corolla. Safe, affordable, available, reliable. I've had friends with Toyotas that were about to fall off their base from road salt rust but the engine and transmission still worked perfectly. Pretty amazing that you can be of modest or lavish means and still own a really solid car that everyone can fix. A lot funner than hanging out in the repair shop waiting for a specialist to fix a blown turbo headgasket.
RobKohr 10mo ago
Or maybe no one with interesting thoughts on anything would invest anything in a nation where if post anything online that might be slightly controversial you might go to jail and not even have the protection of a jury to balance out the overreach of government. That and other things that are transforming it into a nanny state make it a hell no. But yeah, it's nice you are lowering taxes and regulations on those who fall in line.
phkahler 10mo ago
I'm starting to believe "economic growth" is fiction. Just because an item has a higher price does not mean it's higher output. If we measure the value of things based on say the energy + labor cost to produce it, economic output (or GDP) will look very different. I'm not saying that's a good measure, but that there are other ways to look at it and the current one seems broken. When Elon Musk says the only way to solve the US debt crisis is through automation and AI to boost GDP, it makes no sense. Government revenue has less and less to do with output and more to do with taxes on labor, so automation will make the problem worse. I'm not saying we shouldn't automate things, but that the ideas of cause->effect when it come to money are not very well thought out - yes, including my own.
- rtkwe 10mo ago
  They do adjust for higher prices (inflation) in GDP calculations though. We will have to drastically change the tax base if automation really takes off. Every individual company or industry is rushing to flush out their workers but someone has to make money to buy their products eventually and I doubt they'll enjoy the level of taxes needed to maintain an economy if they all manage to dump their employees at the same time.

22 points by Incerto 10mo ago

__s 10mo ago

Pushing for flat tax, but no mention of Andorra or Isle of Man. Guess those aren't considered growth centers to support their argument

rtkwe 10mo ago
Well they clearly haven't flat tax deregulated enough! /s
- blitzar 10mo ago
  Its not flat enough
  - rtkwe 10mo ago
    The only line flat enough for industry to not come back asking for more cuts will be the flat strike through line on any taxes that they pay.
    - blitzar 10mo ago
      I would like to introduce a concept - negative taxation - you (the taxpayer) pay us a royalty for gracing you with our presence.
      - __s 10mo ago
        you're describing subsidies
        rtkwe 10mo ago
        I think we can presume they know that and are just continuing the fun slightly snarky framing. There are also minor differences in implementation between negative taxes (credits beyond obligations which can happen in the US though they're very, very rare) and subsidies.

actionfromafar 10mo ago

Can’t tell if satire. Maybe skipping to cars section.

smallmancontrov 10mo ago
They hit every one of the neoliberal memes: * Prosperity gospel (as if developed economies have slow growth for want of just one more tax break on the wealthy. Just one more! That'll fix it right up!) * Laffer curve invoked without any attempt to determine where on it current policy lies * Saving the whales is killing the economy (they were spiders in this example -- point for satire?) * Trying to sneak financial deregulation under the skirts of the above * Opaque economic growth model with self-serving result presented as factual * The rich will leave (as if the pressure isn't coming from their pumped assets and a firesale wouldn't fix this) * Tut-tutting about debt to pretend at fiscal conservatism * 100% attention on upper class concerns, 0% on lower class concerns * Upper-class conservative-coded hobby talk free of any concern that it might give away the above I think they were earnest and just wildly out of touch, though, given all the allusions to 15 year old economic discussions. That's when these memes were at their peak. They simply don't understand the credibility hit they have taken since then. I'd love to see a conversation between them and Gary Stevens. These memes are his origin story.

tdhz77 10mo ago

This is llm hallucination too? Old ideas and goes back to a system that was in place in the 1800’s. It didn’t go well. Who are these people that peddle this every 20-30 years or so? Opportunist.

hcknwscommenter 10mo ago

Flat tax and dregulation. Pretending like they are new ideas.

embedding-shape 10mo ago
Every time someone shares something it has to be new, otherwise it's not worthy of your attention? Couldn't you at least provide some constructive criticism why the argument falls short in your mind, instead of the sharing the first knee-jerky reaction that popped up in your head that just touches the surface?
- actionfromafar 10mo ago
  But the episode has just as little behind their claims. Tech sector is up. Why? Because of deregulation. Ok, how? Nah, moving on to classic cars.
  - embedding-shape 10mo ago
    Ok, share those opinions, views and perspectives then, instead of just attacking the surface of "Well, nothing here is new so no one should care".
- floundy 10mo ago
  The quality of discourse on HN has been nearing the bottom of the barrel (read: mostly indistinguishable from Reddit) since the pandemic. It’s very rare these days to see citations or even arguments that explain personal reasoning. Just like Reddit and Facebook, commenters mostly write what they think or feel as if it were unyielding fact, and the most common denominator (read: boring, derivative, often oversimplified assumptions) rise to the top via the voting system.
  - embedding-shape 10mo ago
    > The quality of discourse on HN has been nearing the bottom of the barrel (read: mostly indistinguishable from Reddit) since the pandemic That's very much not true, and it's also a tale as old as HN at this point. Since I started commenting on HN in 2010 sometime, the quality had stayed more or less the same, and hasn't drastically dropped in quality like Reddit has done as it grew. Also, the amount of comments that complain that HN is turning into Reddit seems to have stayed at the same level of frequency too, fwiw.

cramcgrab 10mo ago

Another political post on a tech news website. Closing the tab for the day.

dspillett 10mo ago
Economics and politics affect tech, tech affects economics and politics.

cpursley 10mo ago

A number of countries that implemented flat tax and simplified the tax code and reduced loopholes actually increased tax revenues (Estonia, Russia, Bulgaria come to mind). Those are not their only sources of tax revenue, of course - but interesting experiment (make it simpler and less loopholes and no insane concept of "tax returns").

briteside 10mo ago

Lol how is this #1

floundy 10mo ago
Because topics like these always attract some Very Smart People to comment and engage in order to share their Very Correct Opinions on macroeconomics and politics.

CPLX 10mo ago

It's amazing how every economic issue can be solved by demanding less of the rich and powerful and demanding more of the poor.

mytailorisrich 10mo ago

GDP per capita has been declining in the UK and this is indeed a big issue (people are getting poorer) hidden behind the marginal growth of the overall GDP created by high immigration. This is linked to a long-standing productivity problem. Some of the ideas bring us back to the Brexit debate. Being outside the EU allows a freedom of action but, depending how far deregulation and law taxes are taken, that also means retaliatory barriers from the EU, which is still the largest trading partner (41% of exports, twice the volume to the 2nd export market, which is the US).

graemep 10mo ago
> GDP per capita has been declining in the UK not true: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CN?locations=GB https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CN?location... There were declines in 2009 andd 2020, for reasons that out to be fairly obvious, but overall consistent growth > that also means retaliatory barriers from the EU, which is still the largest trading partner (41% of exports, twice the volume to the 2nd export market, which is the US However, trade with the EU was declining as a proportion of total trade even before Brexit, is exaggerated by transshipment, and does not have as significant benefits as trading with economies with different strengths (i.e. more comparative advantage)
- blitzar 10mo ago
  > but overall consistent growth Gunna need to inflation adjust that one bud, its not decline, but it is not great. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KN?locations=GB https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KN?location...
  - mytailorisrich 10mo ago
    That shows a decline compared to 2019: 35,193 in 2019, 35,108 in 2024. Overall GDP is up over the period because of population growth. All as per my original comment.
    - 10mo ago

graemep 10mo ago

The problem with the UK tax system is not that it is progressive. In fact, once you add NI it is not all that strongly progressive. The problem is that complexity of tax law, the number of loopholes, incentives, refunds.... The really big problem is that people on low incomes do not have an incentive to work because the loss of benefits means they are barely any better off from working. That is a strong argument for UBI, or at least a much slower rate of loss of benefits so people keep more of their income. There are a lot of imprecise and misleading claims made here, for example: > people who are talented, people who are wealthy, people who have capital, people who have entrepreneurial skills, they can move. Talent, wealth, and entrepreneurial skills are not the same thing. Wealth is often inherited, talented people may be employed and not all talents are all that portable. While capital can be moved the assets that it is tied up in cannot - you can see your business and move, but that just means someone else buys your business. A wealthy person does not have to live where their investments are.

actionfromafar 10mo ago
Read a comment some stories back, that all loss of benefits should be gradual on a curve, never with cliffs. So that you'd pay a few hundred thousand in taxes and get a benefits check for 1 dollar, or pound or whatever.
- graemep 10mo ago
  The UK does not have many cliffs, but the curve is too steep. There is also a very high effective marginal for high earners in certain circumstances (particular range of incomes, have children). People complain about his as well as the steep loss of benefits. Its very rarely the same people complaining about both.

simgt 10mo ago

> Please write a transcript of an interview with an imaginary economist who considers that neoliberalism doesn't work because we haven't been far enough and blame any sort of regulations. Don't mention any material constraints like the availability of cheap energy sources. Don't mention libertarianism. Please also provide a prompt for the TTS model (the discussion needs to sound serious and academic).

throw0101d 10mo ago

> It’s core argument is simple: in a world where talent and capital move easily […] I'm not sure about the talent part: unless you're strictly talking about remote work, going to a new country is not what I would think of as "easy". > Doug explained why a staged path to a 20% flat tax […] It seems to me that flat taxes ignore the marginal utility of every new dollar of income. What exactly is having the top income earners keep more money gotten society? It seems like not much besides more inequality (which has probably helped fuel political dissatisfaction): > This paper uses data from 18 OECD countries over the last five decades to estimate the causal effect of major tax cuts for the rich on income inequality, economic growth, and unemployment. First, we use a new encompassing measure of taxes on the rich to identify instances of major reduction in tax progressivity. Then, we look at the causal effect of these episodes on economic outcomes by applying a nonparametric generalization of the difference-in-differences indicator that implements Mahalanobis matching in panel data analysis. We find that major reforms reducing taxes on the rich lead to higher income inequality as measured by the top 1% share of pre-tax national income. The effect remains stable in the medium term. In contrast, such reforms do not have any significant effect on economic growth and unemployment. * https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/107919/ https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/107919/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

nathan_compton 10mo ago
I'm pretty sure that wealth accumulated by the very rich at the expense of the poor is bad for total economic development because we drastically under-estimate the value of properly developing human beings. We see enormous flourishing in society whenever labor is given more power for whatever reason (usually mass deaths) because this increases the amount of resources which flow towards raising children, who then become productive members of society. In times of weak labor power, average people are squeezed tight and less resources flow to children, which fucks shit up. I think we are seeing that right now in the U.S. - education is nickle and dimed to shit, wages aren't enough to support children, let alone let them flourish, and the general "vibe" is so bad that people don't even want to have kids. Meanwhile rich people are richer than ever.
- 10mo ago

blitzar 10mo ago

> In 2015, Douglas McWilliams of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which is based on Old Street, authored The Flat White Economy: How the Digital Economy Is Transforming London & Other Cities of the Future. > Now, let me just quote some statistics. We have the most successful tech sector in Europe. The reason why is we are outside the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, and the AI Act, which are three European acts which heavily constrain tech growth in the EU. As a result, the thing that I call the flat-white economy ... Digital Markets Act (2022), Digital Services Act (2022) and AI Act (2024) - these regulations are obviously totally different to the UK versions - Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (2024), Online Safety Act (2023). The reason why something was worthy of a book in 2015 is something that happend in 2022 / 2024, the car in the car section must be a delorean. There are a lot of good reasons, making stuff up makes me wonder about the validity of the remainder of the arguments.

kyledrake 10mo ago

> Finally to perhaps lighten the mood, rather than the usual book recommendations, the three of them discuss their favourite cars. I'm sure they're talking about the 8 million dollar Porto Embargo or whatever, but I would love one day to hear a podcast discussing the genius of the Toyota Corolla. Safe, affordable, available, reliable. I've had friends with Toyotas that were about to fall off their base from road salt rust but the engine and transmission still worked perfectly. Pretty amazing that you can be of modest or lavish means and still own a really solid car that everyone can fix. A lot funner than hanging out in the repair shop waiting for a specialist to fix a blown turbo headgasket.

RobKohr 10mo ago

Or maybe no one with interesting thoughts on anything would invest anything in a nation where if post anything online that might be slightly controversial you might go to jail and not even have the protection of a jury to balance out the overreach of government. That and other things that are transforming it into a nanny state make it a hell no. But yeah, it's nice you are lowering taxes and regulations on those who fall in line.

phkahler 10mo ago

I'm starting to believe "economic growth" is fiction. Just because an item has a higher price does not mean it's higher output. If we measure the value of things based on say the energy + labor cost to produce it, economic output (or GDP) will look very different. I'm not saying that's a good measure, but that there are other ways to look at it and the current one seems broken. When Elon Musk says the only way to solve the US debt crisis is through automation and AI to boost GDP, it makes no sense. Government revenue has less and less to do with output and more to do with taxes on labor, so automation will make the problem worse. I'm not saying we shouldn't automate things, but that the ideas of cause->effect when it come to money are not very well thought out - yes, including my own.

rtkwe 10mo ago
They do adjust for higher prices (inflation) in GDP calculations though. We will have to drastically change the tax base if automation really takes off. Every individual company or industry is rushing to flush out their workers but someone has to make money to buy their products eventually and I doubt they'll enjoy the level of taxes needed to maintain an economy if they all manage to dump their employees at the same time.