Debates
12 Nov 10
12 Nov 10
Originally posted by whodeyOK whatever dude. Apparently you enjoy bailing out "too big to fail" institutions full of megalomaniacs taking criminally insane risks. It would be one thing if we would actually let them fail, but we won't, so the people at the extreme upper end of the income disparity curve no1 likes to complain about are the beneficiaries and we are the rubes. Repealing Glass-Steagall was pretty obviously a bad damned idea.
Beyond hilarious!! 😀
12 Nov 10
Originally posted by SleepyguySo you agree with progressives that deregulating the financial sector was in general a bad idea?
OK whatever dude. Apparently you enjoy bailing out "too big to fail" institutions full of megalomaniacs taking criminally insane risks. It would be one thing if we would actually let them fail, but we won't, so the people at the extreme upper end of the income disparity curve no1 likes to complain about are the beneficiaries and we are the rubes. Repealing Glass-Steagall was pretty obviously a bad damned idea.
12 Nov 10
Originally posted by no1marauderOK, let's deal with this objection. no1m loves to pick on irrelevancies, so let's deal with those first.
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How phony is an argument which uses a chart which omits virtually the entire 1920s (a period of massive tax cuts which led to something other than "prosperity"😉 and virtually the entire 1940s (a period of high taxes and robust growth )?
Just looking at the cut off for the very top rate is a ...[text shortened]... doubled in constant dollars.
More baloney from the religion of Spruce.
The tables and references are there for anyone to do the maths on. So let me state the point in plain language: until 1965 in the US, you had to earn at least a million a year to pay the top tax rate. A million a year is very different from the $250,000/year that is being tossed around now.
Second point: WWII happened during the 1940's. High taxes in the 1940's were deemed necessary to pay for the war. But even so they were still only on people earning at least a million a year.
As for looking at the top tax rate -- you started that game, not me. I'm just showing that you are a leftist shill with no understanding of economics using you own weapons. Read 'em and weep, no1m.
I'll address bbarr's point separately, but a little phenomenon has cropped up in the last 25 years called 'China'. You may have heard of it. Until China stops manipulating their currency, American wages will be stagnant. That's an issue. And yes, worker income in the US did double in the aftermath of WWII. It's great for sales when everyone else's infrastructure has been bombed into the dirt.
I'm not going to laugh at you no1m -- it would be too cruel. But you are dead wrong on this.
12 Nov 10
Originally posted by spruce112358your original argument is that the economy didn't really start to grow until the tax cuts were enacted in the early 1980's
OK, let's deal with this objection. no1m loves to pick on irrelevancies, so let's deal with those first.
The tables and references are there for anyone to do the maths on. So let me state the point in plain language: until 1965 in the US, you had to earn at least a million a year to pay the top tax rate. A million a year is very different from the $2 ...[text shortened]... ing to laugh at you no1m -- it would be too cruel. But you are dead wrong on this.
now you're arguing that the economy really has NOT been growing much since the early 80's - that it has actually been stagnant because China has been manipulating its currency.
12 Nov 10
Originally posted by MelanerpesLike I said, if we're not going to actually allow institutions to fail when they take insane risks and lose (you know, like capitalism is supposed to work), then they're just taking private profits while the taxpayers absorb all the risk. I don't think objecting to that is only a "progressive" idea.
So you agree with progressives that deregulating the financial sector was in general a bad idea?
12 Nov 10
Originally posted by spruce112358I suggest you laugh; that's what idiots do.
OK, let's deal with this objection. no1m loves to pick on irrelevancies, so let's deal with those first.
The tables and references are there for anyone to do the maths on. So let me state the point in plain language: until 1965 in the US, you had to earn at least a million a year to pay the top tax rate. A million a year is very different from the $2 ...[text shortened]... ing to laugh at you no1m -- it would be too cruel. But you are dead wrong on this.
You offered no answer to the point that there were many tax brackets and just looking at the top marginal rate is misleading; many of the other brackets had marginal rates exceeding by quite a bit the top rate now. Have someone explain this chart to you: http://www.bus.ucf.edu/ckelliher/tax_5015/examples/historical_tax_rates.pdf from 1920 until Reagan screwed up the tax system, there was never any less than 20 brackets. Of course, there is nothing saying that we shouldn't tax millionaires and billionaires more than those making $250,000; in fact, it would be an excellent idea.
Robert Reich easily debunks your entire premise on p. 132 of Aftershock:
Yet higher taxes on top earners have not correlated with slower growth, the claims of supply side economists to the contrary notwithstanding. During the three decades spanning 1951 to 1980, when the top rate was between 70% and 92%, average annual growth in the American economy was 3.7%. Between 1983 and the start of the Great Recession [i.e. 2007], when the top rate ranged between 35% and 39%, average growth was 3%.
OUCH! Guess you were wrong.
Your simplistic "analyis" (more like lame excuses for the world not to follow what your religious dogma says it should) isn't really worth much of a response, but the idea that the rest of the world was "Bombed into the dirt" for three decades is ridiculous as is the idea that China (an economy which even now is about 1/6 the size of ours) caused stagnant worker wages in the US for three decades.
Shaking my head in pity at ya, Spruce.
12 Nov 10
Originally posted by bbarrWages haven't risen because of foreign competition -- true. But raising our tax rates will not address that situation. We are in the process of creating foreign consumers who will want to buy American products. At which point demand for labor goes up and wages rise again. That is IF we don't tax our entrepreneurs too heavily and start building things the Chinese want to buy. AND if China will stop manipulating their currency so the Chinese consumers can buy those things.
Do you have any economic data that supports the claim that 'growth', as you use it above, has a high correlation to the median wage (not mean wage) of U.S. citizens, or to their overall financial security, or to their ability to buy a home, send their children to college, afford health care, retire comfortably, and so on? Why should we care about growth if it ...[text shortened]... edia.org/wiki/File:Historical_median_personal_income_by_education_attainment_in_the_US.png