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biccat wrote:I'm not sure why you think I've misused the quote. Especially since I said that progressive taxation is the inverse of his quote:

"The law, in its majestic equality, punishes the rich and poor alike for earning over $1 million per year"

You may think, as many on the illogical left do, that progressive taxation is fair, but it's not. Punishing the rich for earning money stems exactly from the same logic as punishing the poor for sleeping under bridges.

To use another poster's language, "I've thought a few times that we must finally have reached the bottom of intellectual incoherence in the US leftwing, that surely now they'd start to man up, get honest, and get back to being the party of Kennedy. I've been wrong everytime before, but maybe just maybe this is as bad as it's going to get, and from now on we might see some improvement."

You misused the quote because you are arguing for legal equality, where legal equality is defined as two parties being treated the same when we take a ridiculously narrow, blinkered look at their actions and the circumstances surrounding them.

France is making fun of the idea of looking solely at the act of sleeping under the bridge, and ignoring which parts of society do that and why. You're doing the same thing, by looking purely at taxation, and not considering who's earned the most money any way.

You ignored the part of my post where I explained to you that tax is just one part of a greater system, and looking at it alone is foolish. Don't ignore that part, go back, read it, and start to realise that tax that the system that allows a gifted lawyer to earn $300,000 in a year is the same system that says he should pay more in tax than the guy who earns $30,000 doing the gardens at his office.

Left to his own devices, removed from society and it's laws, the lawyer would, at best, have a nice log cabin and enough meat to last the winter. He certainly wouldn't have his great house and his mercedes. So, when that guy looks at the tax code and the tax code alone, and declares that the system has taken lots of his money, while happily ignoring the fact that he'd have nowhere near that level of income in the first place if it wasn't for the system, he's really missing the point.

sebster wrote:You misused the quote because you are arguing for legal equality, where legal equality is defined as two parties being treated the same when we take a ridiculously narrow, blinkered look at their actions and the circumstances surrounding them.

France is making fun of the idea of looking solely at the act of sleeping under the bridge, and ignoring which parts of society do that and why. You're doing the same thing, by looking purely at taxation, and not considering who's earned the most money any way.

France's quote shows that when two people are differently situated, the law, despite being facially neutral, actually has a disparate impact on them. Therefore, there is no legal equality because the application of the law to one person (the wealthy man) renders it a nullity while the application of law to the other (the poor) causes substantial harm.

sebster wrote:You ignored the part of my post where I explained to you that tax is just one part of a greater system, and looking at it alone is foolish. Don't ignore that part, go back, read it, and start to realise that tax that the system that allows a gifted lawyer to earn $300,000 in a year is the same system that says he should pay more in tax than the guy who earns $30,000 doing the gardens at his office.

OK, so lets assume you're correct, that the lawyer (A) earning $300k/year should pay more than the gardener (B) who earns $30k/year.

How much more should he owe? I think that if A makes ten times the earnings of B, it is fair to require him to pay ten times the amount of taxes that B pays.

Progressive taxation says that A should pay more than ten times the amount of taxes that B pays. That doesn't make any sense, especially given the marginal utility of money. When A makes ten times the amount of B, he doesn't get ten times the utility from his money. So why should A pay not just his fair share, but more than his fair share?

The reason is actually pretty simple. It's the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: "it's where the money is."

A flat tax that raised even as much revenue as is currently raised would eliminate nearly all incentive for the working poor to work, and it would cripple the middle class.

Progressive taxation is basically the only way to make a tax code actually work.

It also balances out the highly regressive nature of much of the remaining taxes. Rich people don't burn more gas or smoke more cigarettes, so excise taxes hit the poor the hardest. Even property taxes are mildly regressive. Sales tax is strongly regressive.

biccat wrote:France's quote shows that when two people are differently situated, the law, despite being facially neutral, actually has a disparate impact on them. Therefore, there is no legal equality because the application of the law to one person (the wealthy man) renders it a nullity while the application of law to the other (the poor) causes substantial harm.

Except you're still looking at one piece of law in isolation, and still doing your absolute level best to ignore the plain and simple fact that the rich person has more because of his place in society.

France's quote is mocking the idea that justice begins and ends with equal legal treatment, regardless of social justice.

OK, so lets assume you're correct, that the lawyer (A) earning $300k/year should pay more than the gardener (B) who earns $30k/year.

Lets assume what? That the lawyer, if left to his own devices, couldn't go ahead and build his own condo, or build his own mercedes? Yeah, we're going to go ahead and assume those things. At which point, we're going to conclude that the lawyer's wealth comes from being part of society, and benefitting from its rules and processes.

Lets go ahead and make another assumption. Lets assume $300k is a bigger number than $30k. Even after tax, we can conclude that $200k is more than $28k. Once we've made that assumption, we can see that the lawyer is benefitting a lot more from being part of society than the gardener, even after taxes.

At which point, it makes no goddamn sense at all to complain about taxes in isolation, as if the rich were somehow the losers of society's rules, and the poor were somehow the winners.

sebster wrote:At which point, it makes no goddamn sense at all to complain about taxes in isolation, as if the rich were somehow the losers of society's rules, and the poor were somehow the winners.

So, essentially, you're saying soak the rich, damn the consequences?

I suppose that's a political theory. Not particularly intellectually rigorous, but it is certainly in vogue right now. And despite all of it's other failings, populism is great at getting you elected.

I think Sebster's point is that since the rich are only rich because of a combination of their own effort (or their ancestors) and the effort of the entire body politic to produce a system in which a person can get rich, the body politic gets to take some of it back.

The reason the rich don't pack up and go someplace they won't be overtaxed ala Atlas Shrugged is because the only way you become as rich as they are is to have access to workers and consumers.

Also, good luck finding a country that is nicer to the rich than the US. Even if the tax breaks were closed up, it's still where I'd want to live if I was super-rich.

I think the downgrade was more politically driven more than anything, like a slap in the face for congress to stop deadlocking things for months on end. Good decision to say "Hey stop messing around, here's a downgrade for being dumbasses." Don't get me wrong, Democracy is great but is being exploited at the moment.

deffskulla wrote:Don't get me wrong, Democracy is great but is being exploited at the moment.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Everytime there's a problem in DC, people wring their hands about the nature of democracy.

It's hard to admit, but one of the problems with choosing leaders is that it's harder to blame them for all of our problems.

Personally, I lay the blame on Republicans investing in big business instead of small.

Then again, that might merely be extrapolating local problems into national ones.

Polonius wrote:I think Sebster's point is that since the rich are only rich because of a combination of their own effort (or their ancestors) and the effort of the entire body politic to produce a system in which a person can get rich, the body politic gets to take some of it back.

And my point is: how much of their success is attributable to their own efforts and how much is attributable to government benefits? Given that government treats all people equally, whether they are super rich or not, it's hard to say that person A who makes $300k per year is getting more of a benefit than person B who makes $30k per year. They are both afforded the same access to courts, the same police protection, access to the same roads, the same defense against foreign threats, etc.

The difference in protection may be measured by the amount that each person has to lose. At worst, person A has 10 times more at stake than person B. But the actual value of A's earnings is less than ten times the actual value of B's earnings. B values an extra $1000 a lot more than A values an extra $1000. So the actual advantage conveyed to A by society is less than his 10x advantage in earnings over B.

Taxing A at 10x times the amount of B is the best-case scenario. Anything beyond that is punitive.

biccat wrote:

Polonius wrote:I think Sebster's point is that since the rich are only rich because of a combination of their own effort (or their ancestors) and the effort of the entire body politic to produce a system in which a person can get rich, the body politic gets to take some of it back.

And my point is: how much of their success is attributable to their own efforts and how much is attributable to government benefits? Given that government treats all people equally, whether they are super rich or not, it's hard to say that person A who makes $300k per year is getting more of a benefit than person B who makes $30k per year. They are both afforded the same access to courts, the same police protection, access to the same roads, the same defense against foreign threats, etc.

But the government doesn't treat them both the same. While both may theoretically have the same access to courts, in reality, the fact that the are fees associated with the courts put them out of the reach of the poor. Legal costs do as well. While both may theoretically get the same police protection, try calling 911 in the inner city as compared to an affluent suburb and compare response times. Starting at birth, those growing up wealthy benefit more from what society (not just the government) has created. They have better healthcare, better nutrition, better schools, more opportunities for growth outside of schools.

Your view, which seems pretty much based around 'trickle-down' simply doesn't work in the real world. You stated earlier that if taxes were lowered, more jobs would be created, and we could get rid of unemployment. The Bush tax cuts didn't do that. Taxes were cut, and rather than spur job creation, the wealthy simply took more for themselves. Even under Obama's bailouts, rather than create jobs, corporations are hanging on to their money. They've learned that they can function without hiring new people, and the jobs lost in the 2008 crash haven't returned. Those with the ability to hire new people are doing so overseas, where the labor is cheap and the oversight minimal. And, into this, you want to cut unemployment benefits and hope that faith-based charities pick up the slack?

You asked what benefit Social Security provides too. Social Security, unfortunately, takes the place of actually saving for retirement for most Americans. People actually pay into the social security system. Is this the best solution? Probably not, but time and again, most Americans have proven incapable of responsibly planning for their own futures. An article on CNN earlier this week showed that less than a third of Americans could even count on $1000 in savings in case of an emergency expense, instead having to rely on borrowing or bankruptcy to cover such a cost. Having the Government require some minimal retirement savings, in the form of Social Security, really isn't a horrible alternative to having a society where we work our seniors to the day that they die.

biccat wrote:

Polonius wrote:I think Sebster's point is that since the rich are only rich because of a combination of their own effort (or their ancestors) and the effort of the entire body politic to produce a system in which a person can get rich, the body politic gets to take some of it back.

And my point is: how much of their success is attributable to their own efforts and how much is attributable to government benefits? Given that government treats all people equally, whether they are super rich or not, it's hard to say that person A who makes $300k per year is getting more of a benefit than person B who makes $30k per year. They are both afforded the same access to courts, the same police protection, access to the same roads, the same defense against foreign threats, etc.

The difference in protection may be measured by the amount that each person has to lose. At worst, person A has 10 times more at stake than person B. But the actual value of A's earnings is less than ten times the actual value of B's earnings. B values an extra $1000 a lot more than A values an extra $1000. So the actual advantage conveyed to A by society is less than his 10x advantage in earnings over B.

Taxing A at 10x times the amount of B is the best-case scenario. Anything beyond that is punitive.

Until you realize that society is more than government, there's little sense in continuing this conversation.

Government is part of the society, a big part, but my argument is that it's not just government that makes people super wealthy, but all of society. Those that are super wealthy are lucky, either in terms of talent or inheritence, but they only have their wealth because a large interlocked society exists.

In the state of nature, or the wild, the most talented person might have a slighty warmer hut, and a little more meat on the table. In a modern post industrial state, the most talented have exponentiall more money. That's because of all the peons. So, it's not punitive. It's realizing that they alone didn't create their productivity. They get to keep most of it, but they have to pay for the society that made them as wealthy as they are.

Hell, many talented members of society are actually not making all that much. A physicist has more useful talent than an NFL superstar, but makes far less...

Polonius wrote:Until you realize that society is more than government, there's little sense in continuing this conversation.

The question is: how to apportion taxes. So government is the relevant consideration here.

The part I don't understand is how do you explain people earning money in the first place? Plenty of wealthy people started with nothing, are they simply products of random luck, or are they more talented, harder workers, or have rarer talents than those who don't earn as much? Shouldn't someone who works hard, is better at their job, or more in demand earn more money?

Melissia wrote:Hell, many talented members of society are actually not making all that much. A physicist has more useful talent than an NFL superstar, but makes far less...

Says you. But a lot more people are willing to pay to see an NFL superstar at work than a physicist.

biccat wrote:Says you.

No.

The physicist is provably more useful than the steroid-abusing gakhead.

The garbage man is more useful. Without him, you'd die of disease from your own filth. The chemist working at the water sanitation plant is more useful. Without her, you'd die of poisoning from bad water. A thousand other lower paying jobs are more useful, provably so.

Melissia wrote:

biccat wrote:Says you.

No.

I think the physicist is provably more useful than the steroid-abusing gakhead.

The garbage man is more useful. Without him, you'd die of disease from your own filth. The chemist working at the water sanitation plant is more useful. Without her, you'd die of poisoning from bad water. A thousand other lower paying jobs are more useful, provably so.

Maybe the physicist and garbage man are more useful in providing services, but the NFL superstar is far more valuable.

Without the NFL player a lot of advertisers wouldn't be able to sell their products as well. NFL franchises wouldn't exist. People wouldn't look forward to Sunday Football.

People place a great deal of value on sports games. Look at the outrageous ticket prices people are willing to pay in order to get a mere two hours of enjoyment.

There are millions of people who can empty garbage cans. How many can play football at a professional level?

I think you are both meaning value in different ways.

Yes, I'm using real value to society due to them usefully contributing to the well-being of society, like garbagemen or chemists, rather than leeching off of everyone else's efforts without putting forth any societal contribution, like sports stars.

No clue what weird definition Biccat is using.

biccat wrote:There are millions of people who can empty garbage cans. How many can play football at a professional level?

Millions of people can carry and throw an oblong leather ball. In fact, I would go so far as to say billions of people could do this ultimately useless and pointless task.

This is (in part, the other parts being a mix of tradition and political reasons) why officers and specialists in military organizations are generally paid more than grunts. Anyone can hold and fire a weapon or throw a grenade. It takes far more skill to be a sniper, or a commander.

Melissia wrote:No clue what weird definition Biccat is using.

The amount a person is willing to offer in exchange for a good or service that they want, need, or desire.

But you're claiming that entertainment has no value, when clearly it does.

Sure, entertainment is further up he hierarchy of needs than shelter or food, but once you've got a house and a sandwich, you pretty much need something on TV.

The entertainer (of which athletes are just one type) has been a part of human society for hundreds, if not thousands of years. When it comes to the specialization of labor, once you have enough farmers, making more food isn't worth all that much.

I don't hold a grudge against pro athletes, nor against musicians, painters, sculptors or actors (or game designers), all of whom do not contribute to the lower tiers of the hierarchy of needs. But, I am in complete agreement with Polonius, in that these individuals would be unable to make their money if it were not for other people addressing the more fundamental needs of society first.

biccat wrote:

Polonius wrote:Until you realize that society is more than government, there's little sense in continuing this conversation.

The question is: how to apportion taxes. So government is the relevant consideration here.

The part I don't understand is how do you explain people earning money in the first place? Plenty of wealthy people started with nothing, are they simply products of random luck, or are they more talented, harder workers, or have rarer talents than those who don't earn as much? Shouldn't someone who works hard, is better at their job, or more in demand earn more money?

government is a relevant consideration, but in a moral argument for progressivity, you can include all the benefits and costs of wealth.

People earn money for a lot of reasons. There are wealthy people that start with nothing. They worked hard, and used their talents, and now earn large incomes. They did so in a society that allows, and even encourages such a rise. And the society gives a benefit (being able to earn ludicrous wealth without bloodshed, and retain it without bloodshed), and extracts a cost.

How hard a person works really should have no direct relation to their pay. The value of their output should. There is often a correlation, but most professionals know the guy that goofs off half the day but outproduces the guy working late. Labor is worth what people will pay.

And of course people that can demand higher wages should enjoy them. And they do. But the rich need the poor more than the poor need the rich.

Entertainment has its uses, but entertainers are still of less value to society than the emergency personnel, the scientist, the doctor, the sanitation personnel, the soldier. Entertainment is an afterthought-- a highly overpaid afterthought.

Much of the time it's actually used as a distraction, so people entertain themselves instead of solving problems, causing their lives-- and society in general to only get worse through their procrastination. Like alcohol, in a sense, only it's purely psychological rather than also being chemical.

Redbeard wrote:But, I am in complete agreement with Polonius, in that these individuals would be unable to make their money if it were not for other people addressing the more fundamental needs of society first.

Well, the very idea of wealth, and the specialiization of labor, depends on there being a steady source of food. Which is why, prostitution aside, farming is the first occuption, with soldier (defending the food) is a close second.

Absolute wealth (as opposed to relative wealth) is not a zero sum game. I'm "wealthier" than a Roman Emperor in many ways. He had slaves and servants, but I have antibiotics, air conditioning, clean water, and near absolute security and legal stability.

Anyways, everybody's wealth depends on the contributions of, if not all of society, pretty big chunks. Biccat at one point asked if social welfare is what kept rioters from tearing into rich people's homes, and while crude, that's not a terrible way to view it. Because most people's labor is worth very little, and some is worth nothing at all.

Polonius wrote:How hard a person works really should have no direct relation to their pay. The value of their output should. There is often a correlation, but most professionals know the guy that goofs off half the day but outproduces the guy working late. Labor is worth what people will pay.

I agree completely.

But almost all economists will agree that the advantage gained by wealth is not proportionate to the amount of wealth gained. Like I said before, person A who makes $300k per year doesn't get 10x the benefit of that wealth as person B who earns $30k per year. Cutting 1% of person A's income would hardly impact him. Cutting 1% of person B's income would hurt him severely. Therefore, the benefit A receives from each dollar of his money is less than the benefit B receives.

If the marginal value A receives is less than B, why should he be expected to pay more for the same benefit?

Polonius wrote:But the rich need the poor more than the poor need the rich.

This is completely wrong, of course. Especially in a welfare state, the poor need the rich much more than the rich need the poor. I guarantee that without 10,000 of the poorest people, Warren Buffet's life wouldn't change. Eliminate Warren Buffet, and at least 10,000 poor people will see their lives change.

Melissia wrote:Entertainment has its uses, but entertainers are still of less value to society than the emergency personnel, the scientist, the doctor, the sanitation personnel, the soldier. Entertainment is an afterthought-- a highly overpaid afterthought.

Much of the time it's actually used as a distraction, so people entertain themselves instead of solving problems, causing their lives-- and society in general to only get worse through their procrastination. Like alcohol, in a sense, only it's purely psychological rather than also being chemical.

Entertainment might be of less value to you, but not to society. That's the beautiful thing about market value: it's by definitiion accurate.

Polonius wrote:

deffskulla wrote:Don't get me wrong, Democracy is great but is being exploited at the moment.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Everytime there's a problem in DC, people wring their hands about the nature of democracy.

It's hard to admit, but one of the problems with choosing leaders is that it's harder to blame them for all of our problems.

I'm saying there are Elephants in the room that Congress is ignoring and is one of the chief reasons why we were downgraded. Good news is DOW bounced back a little today, one step in the right direction.


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Polonius wrote:

Melissia wrote:Entertainment has its uses, but entertainers are still of less value to society than the emergency personnel, the scientist, the doctor, the sanitation personnel, the soldier. Entertainment is an afterthought-- a highly overpaid afterthought.

Much of the time it's actually used as a distraction, so people entertain themselves instead of solving problems, causing their lives-- and society in general to only get worse through their procrastination. Like alcohol, in a sense, only it's purely psychological rather than also being chemical.

Entertainment might be of less value to you, but not to society. That's the beautiful thing about market value: it's by definitiion accurate.

That's why there is beer and football!

There's actually an argument to be made from a psychological standpoint that entertainment is psycholgoically essential to humans. It certainly makes sense, given how aggressively we pursue it.

Given that we evolved pretty powerful brains to hunt, gather, evade predators, talk, socailize, etc. and find ourselves needing less and less of that... it makes sense we crave stimulation.

biccat wrote:
But almost all economists will agree that the advantage gained by wealth is not proportionate to the amount of wealth gained. Like I said before, person A who makes $300k per year doesn't get 10x the benefit of that wealth as person B who earns $30k per year. Cutting 1% of person A's income would hardly impact him. Cutting 1% of person B's income would hurt him severely. Therefore, the benefit A receives from each dollar of his money is less than the benefit B receives.

If the marginal value A receives is less than B, why should he be expected to pay more for the same benefit?

If the marginal value of his money is less, then he isn't paying more, because his money means less.

By way of your example, if person A pays 1% in taxes, it's nearly meaningless to him. If person B pays 1% in taxes, he feels it at the grocery store. Therefore, to be closer to equal, person A has to pay more than 1% in tax.

Polonius wrote:That's the beautiful thing about market value: it's by definitiion accurate.

People manipulate and drive up or down prices all the time. The last thing market value is is accurate.