The Glade 4.0

There are so many responses to this to illustrate the point, but at its most simple explanation, its an equilibrium between the resistance to the economy caused by taxes and the incentive for growth of the economy. If high taxes kill jobs because companies can no longer afford to operate at given levels, the source of those taxes are decreased, meaning less money... add in outgoing payments via entitlements, and additional funds are needed by the government to support those programs, either at the cost of other programs (jobs, etc), or at the cost of higher taxes.

Sure, cutting tax rates <i>can</i> actually raise tax revenue, but the rates have to be insanely high for that to be the case. Even the architects of supply-side economics don't think we're anywhere near those rates now.

That's because we're well past that point.

_________________

Chicago != Austrian

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Yes, lower rates will absolutely increase revenue.

It starts with the base premise that the private sector creates new wealth at a much faster rate than it destroys wealth. We know this because we aren't living in the second century anymore. When a business is successful it consolidates some quantity of wealth. This is called capital formation. But here's the rub: once consolidated companys generally don't put it into a money bin and swim in it. They invest it in creating more new wealth. They do this perpetually. Think. If it didn't actually work this way, our country would still have the same GDP today that it did in 1783.

Infact, by raising rates you actually decrease wealth creation. Less capital formation is allowed to occur, therefor less investment is made. That's the thing about the wealthy. They always want more money than they had before, so you can depend on them to constantly seek to create new wealth.

Xequecal:

The reason it isn't tried is because it would cause those who would have to write the law to lose power, importance, and position.

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Rynar:

You haven't proven that the private sector is always more effective than the government at creating wealth. Increased taxation can go to important governmental programs.

A purely socialist American society would also have a much increased GDP since 1783, simply due to abundance of natural resources, technological innovation, and immigration.

Are you aware of how wealth is created? I ask because this statement would indicate that you do not. We can't take this discussion any further until you have demonstrated that you do, indeed, understand.

Also, you haven't demonstrated that any specific government program is important. In addition, I believe the whole point of this discussion is the notion that reducing rates would actually increase revenues, which makes the second sentence of your post nonsensical.




Demonstrate how.

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Wealth is created through labor. For example, a government program to build roads increases wealth because it develops the country and increases real estate value. Labor can be motivated through both private and public enterprises. Increasing rates to build roads increases commerce.



People laboring. Do you think people are going to sit on their asses just because they don't privately own things? People want to survive both individually and as a community.

What wealth is created by flipping a burger? What wealth is created by acting in a play? How do you store labor? Does it not degrade?

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Flipping a burger turns it from uncooked meat to cooked meat, which is more valuable (when it's fresh).

Acting in a play provides entertainment, which is worth money.

Labor and the products of labor are usually traded with currency. You can also trade a chair for a table. Both are products of labor. Both are forms of wealth.

Labor is "stored" in wealth.

This is all basic economics, Rynar.

All you're doing is taking the private sector and moving it under the government by using the banner of "socialism". It's still the same activities that produce the wealth.

We can also see from looking at socialist nations that they ar unable to compete with nonsocialist nations in those wealth-producing activities.

Rynar is correct; the private sector creates wealth. Taking the private sector and putting it under the government doesn't change this; it just makes it less efficient.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And thus, increased taxation can also increase wealth.


The Soviet Union had an amazing annual growth rate of 12-13% under Stalin's first 5 Year Plan. That didn't last indefinitely, obviously, but he was well able to compete with other nations.



The public and private sectors both can create wealth. A society with abundant resources, non-primitive technology, and resistance to disease will always create wealth.

Government programs are sometimes more efficient.

No it can't.



What exactly was growing at 12-13%, how did it compare with other nations at the time, and most importantly, who gives a ****? It doesn't matter if you can only compete for 5 or 10 years when you get your *** kicked after that. That's like saying that because you were up 7-0 at the end of the first drive that you can compete with a team that beats you 42-7.



Not at creating wealth. You don't seem to know what "creating wealth" means. Fire departments, for example, work well as a government program, but they don't create wealth; they consume it - in order to prevent even more wealth going up in flames.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I just showed how it can. You're being a baby.



The Soviet Union was the second largest super power for quite a long time. Even after going downhill, they were still powerful. Russia is technologically advanced due to government programs. They beat the United States in many space programs. Satellites are obviously a form of created wealth.



You don't know what it means. Fire Departments maintain wealth. Businesses do the same thing. They pay for people to mow their lawns, for example. They pay for people to monitor their networks - ever hear of IT? Repaint walls, etc. Fix broken telephone lines.

There are innumerable examples of government creating wealth. Government buildings. Bridges. Roads. Sewage systems. The military - a tank is as much a form of wealth as anything else. Increased taxation can fund the military.

You haven't shown anything at all, except that you're still a trolling nitwit.



I hate to break it to you, but their run as a superpower really only lasted about 45 years, give or take, and through much of that their economic situation was pitifulas they attempted to keep up with the U.S technologically. In fact, they got away with it for so long only because we had periods such as right after Viet Name where we allowed our military to decay. Their power since their fall is an illusion created by the fact that they have such a large quantity of nuclear weapons. As for satellites, showing that the government can run a program that creates useful items in one particular area does not show that it is generally comparable to the private sector in overall effectiveness.

Ok, so they got a satellite in orbit before us. So what? Our satellites that actually do stuff are built by contractors, not the government, and whose satellites are providing things like GPS, TV, and Google Earth?



No **** sherlock. I just got done saying that fire departments maintain wealth. Obviously buisnesses do that too. The fact that buisnesses also maintain their wealth does not show that government also creates it, or that it does it just as well as the private sector.



Dumbass, the government buys all that stuff from private contractors. They hire people to do all of that.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

45 years is still a substantial time to be a super power. In those 45 years, the country transformed from a mostly agrarian nation into a very strong industrial one and led in technological research. They did lack in many other important areas, I agree. I agree that the private sector has a larger overall effectiveness. However, in some areas the government can be more efficient.



Clearly, socialist policies can be effective.



The government funds the contractors with money collected through taxation. Increased taxation leads to increased funding for such programs. And yes, satellites can also be built by strictly private companies. I am not refuting that.



They hire people with money collected through taxes. The private contractors are working for the government even if they aren't technically state employees. Increased taxation can let the government hire more contractors leading to increased wealth.

The Soviet Union only "led in technological research" in a few areas that were either A) status symbols or B) had direct military application, such as titanium metallurgy. It also isn't impressive to be a superpower for 45 years if the act of maintaining it ultimately turns you into a second-rate power that relies on nuclear weapons to remain relevant.

Obviously the government can be more efficient at some things, but none of those things create wealth.



You seem to forget the fact that in 1941 the Soviets were relocating their industrial facilities as fast as they could to avoid any more of them being captured by the germans, and a lot of their workforce was out fighting the Germans. Not only that, but you didn't show what or how much was doubled. It's easy to double something that's low in the first place and easier to double production that



And no one would want to spend money on satellites that do useful stuff like that if the government didn't? Why do you think Obama is pushing private space programs?

Increased taxation doesn't necessarily lead to increased funding for anything anyhow, since A) it has to increase revenue which may or may not happen, and B) the money doesn't necessarily go to such programs.



Obviously. However, they still rely n the private sector to provide the actual production of the goods.

Not only that, but military equipment isn't a good example of wealth because it doesn't in turn help produce more wealth. It protects wealth from being taken or destroyed by others; it doesn't create any.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

"Lower rates will increase revenue" doesn't follow from this. While lowering taxes certainly does increase wealth creation, it can't possibly increase it enough to keep the government in the same amount of money. Reducing taxes from 30% to 15% would require wealth creation to double in order to keep revenue neutral.

With 0% tax, the government gets no money. With 100% tax, the government gets no money. There is a maximal point. You can't just claim "lowering taxes raises revenue" unilaterally.

Xequecal:

Are you aware that half of the money that the IRS takes in is spent on collecting taxes?

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Lex, what you're missing is that government is less efficient at creating wealth than the private sector, minor outliers like NASA not-withstanding.

As such, taxation does NOT create wealth (even though the government programs it's spent on do create some wealth) because it's taking money from the more efficient private sector to give to the less efficient government sector. Thus, the net result in taxation is a reduced rate of wealth creation.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Return to robber barons anyone?

Amazing amounts of wealth were created under the robber barons, but they were unethical, amoral, and greedy men who used the system and frequently a corrupt government to achieve their great wealth.

The robber barons were responsible for forcing the creation of unions as we know them today to protect the employees from their excesses. This parallels with the unbridled abuses of various members of the 'nobility' in Europe creating a climate ripe, begging for socialism.

Neither unbridled capitalism or unrestrained socialism works well for the great majority of people, but where is the medium we can live with? Any hint of social responsibility may cause the capitalists' to cry foul. Any perceived abuse of the working class by the capitalists may cause the socialists to stamp their feet and start strikes.

How do we find a compromise we can all live with?

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Really, all of them?

Andrew Carnegie donated vast sums of his wealth while alive to museums, found universities, and peaceful enterprises.

JP Morgan left more than 75% of his art collection to the Metropolitan in NY, and while alive was responsible in decreasing the cost of steel by 80% in real dollars. Tell me less expensive and better building materials didn't help people. Fresh produce that could get places without spoiling due to cheap enough railroad construction costs to have them go most places, the start of the skyscraper era because of high quality low cost steel, the manufacture of mostly steel tools and other effects that result in the creation of superior goods.

Lets look at the big boy Rockefeller. I suppose the car being affordable to operate from most businesses and private citizens had no great positive effect. I guess everyone educated at University of Chicago and helped to get there by his grants which continue to this day had no better life. All those people who would have had Yellow Fever (since he started the foundation to stop it - and it did) should have suffered and died because you think he "was a bad man". Lets not forget a treatment for hookworms either.

Oh yeah or http://rockpa.org/ which guides philanthropists into creating the most effective charitable work they can.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Really poor choice of examples Elmarnieh. Their philanthropy came towards the end of their lives, after decades of abuse building their empires. Many of them donated largely to charity for tax relief, to cleanse their names and in some cases because they knew they were dying and didn't particularly care for their heirs. Did some good come of their fortunes? In some cases yes, I won't dispute that. Some of our modern robber barons, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, are now doing wonderful things with their fortunes, cleansing their names so their legacy is as confusing as the early robber barons. Bill Gates attempted for years to make his empire a monopoly and MicroSoft became synonymous with unfair business practices on this coast.

With the earlier barons, were the advances worth the corrupting of government, the downright theft of others property, the murders, the beatings, the poor treatment of their workers? Would a voluntary siphoning of money to philanthropic purposes earlier in their careers have done as much or more good? Its all speculation at this point. You talk about defending rights passionately, yet these men trampled all over the rights of legions of others and you defend them? I'm sensing a mixed message here sir. Which is more important, more worthy, the defense of rights or the accumulation of wealth at the cost of the rights of others?

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

The entire 2007 IRS budget was 10.7 billion.
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,, ... 82,00.html

The IRS collected $2.4 Trillion in FY 2007
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/07dbreturnfiled.pdf

The GDP in 2007 was $14.56 trillion (estimated, I've seen where the CIA listed it at $13.84 trillion on Google also)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/us.html

Just wow, Rynar.

_________________
In time, this too shall pass.

While we'll hear from the usual suspects I'm sure, reduced taxation and pointing out the efficiency of the private sector in wealth creation in no way mean advocating a return to the excesses of the robber baron era.

I really don't buy the comparison of Warren Buffet or Bill Gates to the robber barons of the 1800's either. Unfair buisness practices in creating computer operating systems really aren't anywhere near the problem of the conditions people labored under in the steel mills of the 19th century.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."