Social Democracy and the demise of the middle class.
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I take an all of the above approach. Currently, spending levels are at about 25% of gdp last time I checked and revenues are about 15% of gdp. Historically, one would like to balance these levels at about 18% of gdp for each. So to me, we have both a spending and revenue problem. However, the revenue problem can be addressed in much part due to the high unemployment rate. So in reality, we have a massive spending problem.
But when you take into account we have a $16 trillion debt, I support on all of the above approach that would raise revenues (repeal the Bush tax cuts on high earners) and implement massive spending cuts including entitlement reform. But the reality is as you have alluded to earlier and as I have stated, raising taxes does very little. But I think the negative economic impact this would cause has been vastly overstated by Republicans. But this would also mean the Democrats would run out of excuses for not enacting spending cuts with their whole "everyone must sacrifice" argument.
no, because it is the wrong thing to do. the fed has been pouring money into the economy because it believes it has no choice. government should not now be cutting back either. arguably another trillion per annum can be squeezed from the rich on your figures. since the us can obviously afford its current level of borrowing, this should be going into new stimulus spending. when things level out again. the additional tax will help bring down the deficit.
it really is quite remarkable that the us is in such trouble largely of its own making by choosing to set taxes too low. bearing in mind that low taxes benefits high earners most, I wonder how this happened. reading some of the postings on here about how the Republican party behaved so much more in national rather than self interest even as recently as Reagan, one wonders how it changed.
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QE is the wrong thing to do. The US cannot keep up borrowing like this. Do you know what Johnny Depp is doing in France right now?
No, this is not arguable. You can't "squeeze" another trillion from the rich. If you repealed the Bush tax cuts on the rich that would bring in about $70 billion annually.
You can't honestly expect any rational thinking person to raise them even more to bring in another $930 billion "per annum". Even France isn't proposing rates that high.
This is basically what I was saying in the beginning of this thread that raising taxes on the rich accomplishes virtually nothing in terms of any real deficit/debt reduction.
well I couldn't really resist. your argument when logically applied would mean all taxes should be abolished. all, not just on the rich. the government would be broke. no armed forces, no homeland security.no schools. no pensions, an army of starving pensioners breaking into peoples houses to steal food. private hospitals closing, both because of loss of revenue from the state and bankrupt sick queing at emergency rooms for free healthcare. no security services to control any of these mobs.every citizen and his gun for himself, at least until his bullets run out. should lead to a drop in illegal immigrants despite not having any border patrol. should lead to a pretty big rise in the general death rate. but since companies would be closing even faster than workers were being killed, unemployment would still become the rule.
you really want to abandon mdern tax and spend government?
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Abandoning taxes is outright stupid, but charging higher taxes specifically on the rich won't help the US Debt at all? Do you think it's all rich folks in the US? And another thing I live in Canada (free healthcare, which SUCKS!) I'd rather pay for my medical bills knowing I'm getting the right treatment, because the doctors where I live don't give 2 shits about your health. Excuse the language...
And what is healthcare without eye, or dental care? I've always wondered? Do your teeth, and eyes not create health problems? Sorry for the rant. Hah.
i have no idea about depp. quantitative easing us one of the more sensible things being done now. it replaces some of the liquidity lost in the recent crash, keeps down the interest rate paid on government debt and in due course will allow a big chunk of it to be written off. if it causes some inflation that too will help write off private debt.
why not?
if you mean by world standards, yes. by us standards something like 1% have 1/3 of all the wealth of the us.so disposing of just 1% of your population would leave the remainder all 50% richer. that sounds quite tempting. I am not advocating killing them, not least because it is correct they will include many of the most competent people in the country who do contribute disproportionately highly to national wealth. but not to the extent they have siezed that wealth for themselves.
As a nation yeah they are one of the richest, but by population, there is probably more average middle class, and unemployable people. And by getting rid of that 1%, it may help bring the debt down, but the debt is so huge that just that wouldn't cut it. Face it man, the US debt will never be reduced to below anything substantial in our lifetimes. The only way to get rid of, would be to just restart all debts in every country, like someone mentioned in another thread. All of which will never happen.
cancelling all debt is not absolutely out of the question. we came near total financial collapse 5 years ago and I am not convinced we have done more than defer it. but I am not a defeatist and do not think we should give up trying a more or less traditional appproach of using taxes to raise money just yet.
Perhaps I am a bit dull on this one, perhaps though I see the wood for the trees.
That's there for Dandy to quote and tell me that I am dull, dull of something :tongue:.
The issue for me is simply the cost of redistribution of wealth through government. Doing it this way costs at least 10%. Our Gov is currently already redistributing half of our GDP at a cost of 10%, so that's 5% a year of our GDP. If you are only growing by 1%, does this then mean that in real terms you are shrinking by 4%?
My friend believes that earning £40k makes you rich. Perhaps then this should be the top pay for any civil servant, including Doctors. Because as you point out to me, Dands, as I travel and work in China, £40k makes you seriously wealthy here.
I am afraid that in a globalised economy the labouring man is worth no more in Thailand or England. International socialism found this too much to deal with. But still, Ed laboured his way through Oxford a few years after Dave. :smile:
That's there for Dandy to quote and tell me that I am dull, dull of something :tongue:.
The issue for me is simply the cost of redistribution of wealth through government. Doing it this way costs at least 10%. Our Gov is currently already redistributing half of our GDP at a cost of 10%, so that's 5% a year of our GDP. If you are only growing by 1%, does this then mean that in real terms you are shrinking by 4%?
My friend believes that earning £40k makes you rich. Perhaps then this should be the top pay for any civil servant, including Doctors. Because as you point out to me, Dands, as I travel and work in China, £40k makes you seriously wealthy here.
I am afraid that in a globalised economy the labouring man is worth no more in Thailand or England. International socialism found this too much to deal with. But still, Ed laboured his way through Oxford a few years after Dave. :smile:
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Raising taxes on the wealthy would benefit the budget. Since half of the most wealthiest people pay less in overall taxes, then the middle or lower class does, would balance out what the Government needs to fulfill it's obligations to those less fortunate. When the wealthy pay less than 33% - 13%, and the middle and lower tax earners by much, much more, about 38%. Let's just take the tax code back to Ronald Reagan, your God, and see how fast the budget gets balanced. Better yet, let's take the tax code back to Eisenhower and see how even quicker, the budget and the deficit come back into line. Besides, back in 2010, a large group of Millionaires and Billionaires came together in a press conference, recognized that they could help bring the economy back inline if they paid more than they do at that time. If they say it, then what's so wrong about that? That's like saying under Romney's idea, to boost the amount of money the military gets by 25%, when in fact the Pentagon says it doesn't need the money Romney wants to give them. But Romney wants to do it anyway. It's ridiculous. If the group of wealthy men, say, "Yes, please, we want to pay our fair share to help the Government". What part about that is wrong? They say, that the tax code needs to be revised. You object to that??
When has taxing the Wealthy, (who according to the Right Wing are the"job creators"... then where are the jobs??? Two unpaid for tax cuts for the wealthy, under Bush, and there was no job creation. Especially since the economy started to tank in 2007 under the Bush Administration's watchful eye. Where are the F*cking Jobs, man??? There aren't any, and there never was any, by giving the wealthy tax havens, and loopholes, and places like the Cayman Islands, and Switzerland to hide their money from the IRS. The Job Creators, more like tax dodgers. Being paid major money, to ship jobs off to India, and China, since that's how, Romney made his $$ over at Bain Capital. And he lied about that at the debate. So the tax havens is That supposed to be somehow acceptable?? Sound unpatriotic to me. Please gimme a break.
I cant help wondering how it came to this. I have mentioned this before, but british Admiral Tryon visited the US late 1800s and commented how there were no beggars, unlike London which was full of them. I dont know if that is the price of development?
David Cameron today at his party conference said he was proud of his (upper class!) background and wanted every child to go to a school as good as his. Eton, according to wiki has produced 19 prime ministers. I'm not sure how many of the current cabinet went there. Again acording to wiki, almost all the school's pupils go on to universities, about a third of them to Oxford or Cambridge, ie traditionally the two best in the country). There is not a snowball's chance in hell of this happening at state schools, and a moments thought shows it is impossible. How can everyone go to a school which regularly turns out prime ministers and cabinet ministers? If anything shows the divide in society, this does. I do not believe this is because of the cleverness or any innate ability of the boys going there, rather what they have in common is their families are rich, they already fill all the jobs their children are being trained to take over, and the school does indeed do a damn good job of getting the best out of its kids. Such extraordinary success at getting kids into the top universities just shows how bad state schools are in comparison. The only time the state system has come near has been with Grammar schools, which cherry picked the best students for a better than average education.
I am sure the same must be true of the US? Which unlike the late 1800s now has an established and entrenched aristocracy determinedly defending its position. Cameron said his is the party of those working to be rich. Just as with the school, those people who have supported the conservatives might aspire to be rich and achieve the trappings the party promotes, but like the success of the parties favourite schools, it is equally impossible for those supporters to achieve such riches. Because for that to happen, the current possessors would have to give them up.
Where does that figure come from? I saw a comment by Milton Friedman today, which pointed out to me that the difference between a government taking a high proportion of GDp and a low one is really that if it takes high, then it affects the wider economy because of the scale of its actions. If it takes little then it has little effect. This effect could be good or bad, I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe that governments are so awful that it is impossible for them to do a text book perfect job of running those industries they are responsible for. It is naive to claim private industry is always a model of efficiency. Look at the UK in the 70s, look at Greece now. look at those industries which recieve most government subsidy and control in the Uk, and look at some of the most succesful in the Uk - the arms industry. And so it was 100 years ago when armament meant shipbuilding and because of this government intervention Britain was very good at it. (not quite so good as germany, which was spending even more per ship! Government subsidy works!)
No. The economy is what it is, the total of what everyone earns before tax. Then, say, the government takes 50% of this as tax. It spends that on hiring some unemployed people, in fact it spends 50% of what would have been total GDP. Now the new total for earnings in that year is the original 100% plus 50% which the government collected and then spent again. The total of wages for that year, the total of services bought, is now 150% what it would have been if the government had not taxed one penny. So ok, maybe 10% government spending is waste, which i dont accept, but for the argument, then after government taxation GDP is now 140% of what it would have been. Except that GDP does not measure efficiency, only spending or income (which must be equal).
I dont know how the figure works out because this is an iterative process. the new government employees themselves now pay tax, which goes to hire some more civil servants, who pay tax, and so on. A tax rate of 50% would increase the GDP by 1+.5 +,5*.5 + .5*.5*.5+ .5*.5*.5*.5 +...and so on. So if you suddenly stopped taxing at 50%, the economy would halve in size immediately. Hmm? Is there an error in this argument?
Thing is, it is not so simple as a straight comparison. If £40k would make you enormously well off in China, the true exchange rate must be different to the actual one.
Thing is, your chinese example suggests governments cheat the figures to help themselves. One of the conservatives today was talking about successful British companies competing with the rest in the world. The trouble is that succesful British companies do not have the aim of remaining British. They are perfectly happy to move their factory to Thailand if it will then cost the company less to make widgets. This is a success? certainly not a British one. It is national failure.
Countries have always manipulated exchange rates. It was never a level playing field but we are nowadays less often chosen to make the rules or act as referee.
Johnny depp.....born in Marseilles...educated in paris...son of the president of France...famous french film actor known for his french language films all made working in France....has left all that behind for the US where his family dont live, where his career is not, where he never works and does not speak the language. Hmm.
Or have I got the wrong Johnny Depp?
Well, I guess the answer is to sign everyone up to Cambridge and Oxford. Such a program is doing wonders in the US.
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2012/09/03/johnny_depp_flees_france_over_tax_hikes/page/full/
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As I said, in the UK the grammar schools managed to challenge the private schools regarding getting people into the top universities. Frankly the current system fails dismally. But those kids who do get there still dont have rich daddies with rich friends who are going to give them a job running the country once they graduate.Well, I guess the answer is to sign everyone up to Cambridge and Oxford. Such a program is doing wonders in the US.
Oh, and I see from your link that Depp was not complaining about the rate of taxes in France, but that if he lived there more than 180 days in a year he would then be required to pay taxes and did not want to pay any!
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