Ludwig Von Mises is an acknowledged expert in his field, with completely contradicting views. Her distinguished academic career was aided of course by her lying about her race to get accepted... that does look stupid.
Ok, none of that really addresses the point. Your habit is to attack people’s intelligence—both posters here and public figures—with no justification other than your own moral certainty. People can be both smart and wrong, or both smart and dishonest. Holding policy positions or philosophies you disagree with isn’t really where the bar is set. To take one of your favorite examples, there are smart people who believe that minimum wage increases are net negatives, and smart people who believe that they’re net positives. Believe it or not, some of those same smart people produce research that reaches opposite conclusions. This goes back to a critique that jpx had of your “it’s just math” philosophy. Economics is a social science. It ain’t just math. There are plenty of smart folks here, some of whom are well to the right of me politically, who basically agree that the questions of taxation and growth are mostly just questions of degree and time. You’re basically alone in making your extremist arguments, and ascribing lack of intelligence or inability to do math to people with whom you disagree.
Von Mises wrote that fascism saved Western Civilization from communism, fwiw. He was undoubtedly an impressive intellect, yet having that as part of your legacy would seem rather harder to shake than claiming Native American heritage. Also fwiw, Elizabeth Warren did not benefit professionally from that identification, but I’d hardly expect you to be bothered by a detail like that.
You tend to ignore the data of my posts and zero in on other details to derail the topic... I often repeat my direct question to you over and over and over again with no response. Let's hope this time will be different
If that makes you feel better. I sometimes think we have a divergent opinion on what constitutes “data.”
You don't have to be a ideologue to understand this won't fly with the current constitution... Nor do you have to be a Harvard law professor like Warren.
You posted a good argument for that being the case. There’s a paper published by U of Indiana Law that puts forth the view that the court has largely upheld the power to tax fairly broadly, but one 1895 decision which is fairly legally vulnerable is the sticking point. It’s worth a read.
France imposed a wealth tax which caused over 12,000 millionaires to emigrate per year, the largest outflow of rich people in the world. Over 8 million middle class workers had their social security contributions raised to help fill the gap. You may have heard about rioting in the streets due to a new gas tax on the working people.
Oh, the French repealed that tax last year because it was costing them so much money. Since 1990, 12 European countries had wealth taxes, and 8 of them have repealed them including Sweden and Norway. Why would such great economic boons be repealed so quickly I wonder?
France repealed the tax and replaced it with a tax on real estate, rather than total assets. But the question to me is whether you’d really expect Americans to flee the country if a similar tax were enacted.
Because rich people will leave with the middle class holding the bag. See France.
Studies of intrastate mobility suggest that this is not the case. And, again, where exactly would these folks go?
Cool. So you just take it away then? Their parents left it for them, they get taxed on it in that transfer. That's not enough, I suppose in your thirst for the rich
What about those that earned it? Bezos, Gates, Musk, Shultz, etc.? Take it away too... despite all the good they've done for people, workers, etc. You think our government can do better? Why?
Something like 1700 families are potentially subject to the estate tax. And the fact that you think that workers should be thanking people who’ve been largely responsible for decades of attacks on workers’s rights, for the rise of monopsony and the devaluing of their labor, is really telling. As notably rich guy Warren Buffet has said, class warfare is real, and his class is winning.
This is assuming the government can do this efficiently, which they've proven time and time again they can't. The bureaucratic costs alone are estimated to be 14-16%... plus there are tons of studies highlighting hundreds of billion in redundancy costs from the massive bureaucracy.
I've asked you before. What has the federal government done more efficiently than the market? As mentioned, the two things Americans are struggling most with are education and healthcare debt - the two things the government subsidizes the most. Why do you think this is, Julio? And why do you think it will get better if we give them even more control?
Medicare administrative costs vs private insurance. The post office. You’ve been presented with the same answers before. And to your latter point, I’ve said many times that my preference is not government subsidy of private health insurance.
Why does she attack a private citizen's choice to buy a yacht. Why do you, 57 and others always ignore the fact that building yachts does in fact produce jobs. Money in the bank is lent out to people who need it. Investments are made in businesses who employ people. 57 keeps saying "hoarding" but never answers when I ask him what he thinks happens to the money while sitting in a bank. What do you think happens to it?
One thing that happens is that it buys American debt, the creation of which is further exacerbated by huge tax cuts. Another thing is the “financialization” of the economy creating bubbles like the housing/credit crisis of the oughts. That’s a neat little trick. But, if you want the sum of your argument to be that we should be glad that Daniel Snyder is buying a megayacht so we can get jobs swabbing its decks, go ahead.
Just as an aside: Daniel Snyder’s megayacht was built in the Netherlands.
Oh I know you are proud to confiscate from people who have more than you. What a hero. I've asked you now I believe 6 times whether you think it's OK for me to steal from my rich neighbor under the same basis, and you've yet to answer. Will you now?
No, I do not think it’s ok to steal from your rich neighbor, but I do think it’s ok to vote for people and advocate for policy that will ensure broader-based economic security and wider prosperity. That’s the historical role of the social safety net in America, and the end result of more labor power.
I first framed it up as unconstitutional - to which you incorrectly dismissed away.
You present a good argument for the unconstitutionality of that kind of direct tax.
I then framed it up in pure numbers, that it will lead to less revenue and prosperity - To which you completely ignored and gleefully cheered about a rich person having to pay more.
No, you posted a tweet from a blogger with some back-of-an-envelope calculations, the provenance of which are unknown. And, it must be noted, didn’t include the other side of the equation—the societal benefits of those tax receipts.
I then framed it up as a basis of morality - to which you ignored the rest of the substantive debate to focus on that which you frequently do. It's funny - you're happy to talk about the morality of separating children from their parents at the boarder - but you try to dismiss and entire argument based on morality here.
But don't act like I'm simply making an emotional plea here - that's lazy, ignorant, and dumb.
Whenever you personally attack me for wanting to steal someone’s money out of envy or spite, that’s pretty transparently an emotional argument. And your case against taxes is purely a moral one. If you could convincingly demonstrate that your “no taxes/no safety net” position was beneficial, seems like you’d have done so at long last.
