Biden says no tax increases for incomes under $400k- It's not true.

:snort:
You aren't aware that "pursuit of happiness" refers to property rights?
Upon further reflection, I am not as surprised as I originally thought.

Well, duh.
Nothing is free.

Everyone already has this right.

 

The inadequacy you claim does not exist, as the Constitution deals with every situation in the manner deemed proper by the people who wrote and ratified it -- certain powers belong to the federal government, and the rest to the states, as supplied by their constitutions.
In this, there's -no- governmental need that cannot be properly addressed at one level or the other, including "individuals that can no longer make their own way".

Still waiting for an actual meaningful response.

 

“What I’d be focusing on is eliminating the $1.9 trillion tax cut that [Trump] passed,” Biden said in Cedar Rapids."

And not only does he increase those rates he plans on new additional taxes all during a time when that is the LAST thing we need to get the economy up and going into a full recovery. Didn't we learn that 2007 - 2015 under Biden's leadership? And there is no recouping to be done, they were paying more in revenue we didn't have a revenue problem.

 

It's that or have people die in the streets. Which is your preference?

 

You don't believe property is mentioned in the Constitution? Really?

So??

Go try reading the Constitution. Your property is protected under the Constitution.

When you can show me a copy of this "social contract" I signed and agreed to let me know. And you have as much a right to participate or not participate in the nation's economic development as anyone else. But if you choose not do then don't petition the government to take the fruit of that participation from someone who did and give it to you. And human nature has not changed and it remains a society does best when it's members are free to pursue their own self interest and reap the rewards, it's called freedom and liberty, what you are proposing is called Cuba, Venezuela, NK and other planned communal economies where the political class and working class are the economic classes with the former suppressing the latter to maintain their "virtuous" authority and power over the rights of others.

 

If I see someone dying in the streets, I am going to help them. I am not going to waste that effort on those that will not seek a way out of their situation.

 

He didn't say when he would raise taxes on those making $400,000+.

Since when does a Vice President lead?

Joe handled himself okay on the foreign stage and on domestic jobs for Obama.

Our deficit doubled to $1t. Seems like a problem, no?

 

We tried "Screw you!" under Hoover and how did that work out?

 

By borrowing, which means Conservatives can threaten the electorate with endless austerity, as they claim a need to bring the budget back into surplus. Even now Rebubs in Congress have only accepted a $500 billion covid rescue package, for reasons of budgetary discipline - while Trump is prepared to consider much larger deficits.

No they are not. In England, the mayor of Manchester has said he will only accept Boris Johnson's localized lock down of his city if Johnson pays for it. But there is not an orthodox economist in Britain - or the US - who can explain to Johnson how he can in fact pay for it.

Therefore the virus will spread dramatically as people argue about the relative damage of the virus compared with economic lock-downs.

The problem that even Left Wing economists like yourself reject the capacity of the sovereign state to issue and spend,
without taxing or borrowing, its own currency into the economy in certain circumstances, citing inflation concerns.

Therefore the quantity theory of money is obsolete. ie an increase in the money supply causes inflation; spending by the state "crowds out" private spending; the Philips curve and NAIRU of orthodoxy.... are all nonsense.

The real issue is available resources and the productive capacity of the nation, not money.

Which means the state can issue as much money as it needs, limited ONLY by the resource and productive capacity constraint.

Create jobs mean government acting as employer of last resort, by offering an above poverty job to anyone who wants one, in conjunction with the prevailing conditions in the private sector. (Do I need to discuss what is "wealth creation" now?)

The point was that orthodoxy - and the general population with their illusion that money has value - thinks government spending (in recessions) is constrained BECAUSE they (erroneously) think it must ultimately be paid for in the future by taxes or debt servicing.

Addressed above.

When the economy is running AT capacity, there will be no need for social programs, because everyone will be fully-employed with above poverty wages. How hard is that to understand? ....well it's no doubt hard for a free-market orthodox economist to understand...

Lately orthodoxy is splitting; and the balanced budget nonsense is being abandoned by many, but still not all, orthodox economists.

But Powell still hasn't pointed out, and has failed to point out to the American people there is no need for the current angry dispute between the 'death by virus' or 'death by unemployment' (consequent on lockdowns) ' bipolarity, a failure that has resulted in the very real possibility of murder; witness the recent FBI exposed plan to murder a pro lock-down city mayor.

WW2 was financed by taxing and borrowing from the private sector.

See above. In WW2 vast resources and productive capacity were devoted to destruction of lives, resources and property....sheer insanity. We better not go down that path again. In a GND, resources will be productively employed.

What part of it is nonsense?

Let's see if state-planning ("anti-market"?) in China, combined with private enterprise funded ultimately by the government controlled Peoples Bank of China, continues to produce a higher rate of growth than the US with its "free" markets funded ultimately by private banksters independently of the state.

 

It's all they have left.

 

I'll withdraw from your discussion re enjoyment of work; and you still haven't explained its relevance to different levels of taxation in different wage brackets.

 

Note my underlined, in the above.

Every one has a "self-evident" right (according to the Dec. of Ind.) to life, liberty, and freedom to pursue happiness.

In fact, these things ARE 'free' by virtue of citizenship alone, that's why they are "self evident".

(And btw the implications of this are global in extent, if we recall Paine's view that "“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion”).

"...in the manner deemed proper by the people who wrote it...."

....and a mere decade later (in 1789) the people of revolutionary France had already felt the necessity to add - to the concepts of "life" and "liberty" (adopted by the colonial revolution in America) - the concept of "equality". They knew the aristocrats would always want to claim a greater share of the nation's production than can reasonably be considered 'just'.

That's why I can claim the US constitution to be a document of its time and place, inadequate for our time.

The modern world economy is too complex and too inter-connected to address all problems at the local or individual level alone.

Anything meaningful above?

Note: I am exploring the reasons for the madness of the roughly 50/50 Left-Right division in (Western) democracies.

My thesis is that the instinctive, self-interested survival mechanisms that exist in all creatures, in our predatory world, with its competition for (hitherto) scarce resources, results in an unsatisfactory distribution/allocation of resources into 'haves' and 'have nots", given the widely differing capacities of individuals to engage in this competition.

Conservatives want to maintain the status quo in regards to the current allocation of resources based on the (apparent, if not real) ability of the individual alone. (But note: "He who has the gold makes the rules").

Hence Conservatives' appeals to individualism, self-sufficiency, and freedom from "government oppression" (read "taxation").

Progressives want a more just resource allocation, since every-one has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You can't pursue happiness in a ghetto that is "....like a war zone...."

But the ghettos exist because government fails to offer an above poverty job to everyone who wants one.

 

It appears you don't know whether the right to property is specified. I asked you to point to it if you could; but either way, it's not important: see below

"Inalienable" rights or "self-evident' rights are those which belong to all citizens as a matter of birthright, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Oops.... property is not guaranteed as a birthright ....except in a communist society where ownership is moot....

Addressed above.

A social contract is necessary in a moral (human) world, as opposed to the a-moral predation of the (pre - cerebral cortex) natural world.

But your instinct is to accept an a-moral (which is different to im-moral), survival-of-the-fittest mentality. Every man for himself. It's an instinctive survival mechanism in a predatory, competitive (pre-cortex) natural world.

No that's just your survival of the fittest mentality speaking.

Every citizen has the right to above-poverty participation, given a moral society; and hence the obligation to contribute according to one's ability.

That's the 'moral' contract that separates humans from the a-moral animal kingdom.

Addressed above. People don't "choose" to not participate.

No. Systemic unemployment and systemic poverty are not 'free' choices of self-interested, free individuals. And systemic disadvantage is incompatible with a just society.

Ancient history.

That paragraph is just an expression of your inability to conceive of alternative economic systems that can combine private endeavor with state planning, to enable establishment of a just social contract involving reciprocity between citizen and the state.

 

Why wait for you to see them dying? By the time you see them, 1000s will likely have died. Unless you can see all things and catch the 1st one dying.

EDIT:
Remember the days when someone's barn would burn and an entire community showed up to help build a new one? There's stories about such things that happened.
The farmer who's barn burned essentially got a new barn for next to nothing.

What's the difference if a community(local) does it, or the federal gov't pays to have it done?

 

So you haven't read the Constitution? Twice your right to your property is spelled out and yes it is quite important in our country.
"The Constitution protects property rights through the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments' Due Process Clauses and, more directly, through the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause: “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”"
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjABegQIARAE&usg=AOvVaw2jOw21woQYRChQ6LhUi7Gw

Rights are not "guaranties" is a baby handed a gun at birth?

Addressed above are you still denying our property rights are protected in the Constitution?

Can you send me a copy is this "social contract"?

You known as much about my "instincts" as you do the Constitution it seems. And competition did not vanish when the human species and it's cortexes evolved. It is competition that has driven some of our greatest advancements and the freedom and liberty to act in your own self interest is not mutually exclusive of helping others. I personally donate to causes for young children facing disabilities.

No it's reality. Human society does it's best when the people are free to act in their own best interest.

"We examine the writings of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman regarding their interpretation and use of the concept of self-interest. We argue that neither Smith nor Friedman considers self-interest to be synonymous with selfishness and thus devoid of ethical considerations. Rather, for both writers self-interest embodies an other-regarding aspect that requires individuals to moderate their actions when others are adversely affected. The overriding virtue for Smith in governing individual actions is justice; for Friedman it is non-coercion."
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...ical-society/7C23AA254136046433F8529CFD3F2D68

And each according to his needs? Yes you have a right to make for yourself the best life you possibly can but it is YOUR responsibily to do so their is no obligation for the government to PROVIDE by taking from other people under force of law. Again I have an explicit constitutional right to a gun. If I can't afford one do the rest of the citizens have an obligation through the government to supply me with one? I have the right of speech and a free press does government have to provide me a printing press? Can I go to Staples and demand they print for free 1000 copies of my latest political paper and then take them to the post office and demand they mail them?

This contract you keep making up on the fly to suit your fancy, in your own self interest.

Yea they do. Lots of people would prefer to and rather sit home and have you send them your money.

We don't have systemic unemployment and poverty and choosing not to take advantage of the free education afforded you, choosing to engage in crime, choosing to have children out of wedlock, choosing not to seek gainful employment and not to develope your own job skills, choosing to abuse drugs and alcohol will lead you into that poverty.

The countries I listed are quite current and it's your inability to see them for what they are compared to the historical successes of countries which are based on freedom and liberty and not government control of every aspect of our lives.

 

And, somehow, you are unaware that "pursuit of happiness" refers to property rights.
How do you not know this?

Utter nonsense.
You are expected to provide the means necessary to exercise the rights discussed.
How do you not know this?

This is irrelevant to the fact that the Constitution deals with every situation in the manner deemed proper by the people who wrote and ratified it -- certain powers belong to the federal government, and the rest to the states, as supplied by their constitutions.
Thus:
The inadequacy you claim does not exist as there is -no- governmental need that cannot be properly addressed at one level or the other, including "individuals that can no longer make their own way".

Utter nonsense, as demonstrated above.
Our governments currently have al the tools they need to deal with all the issues they, and their people, face.
How do you not know this?

Funny how I never made this claim.
How do you not know this?

 

You RIGHT to own property is.
The fact you must provide the means to exercise that, and every other, right does not in any way mean you do not have the right.

We have one - several actually:
The US Constitution, and the 50 state Constitutions.

Correct
You fail to understand is you are responsible for providing the means to exercise your rights.
How can this be?

 

Much of what you say is true, & I am happy to see you focus on the positives--of which there are many. But it is also true that 40% of all Americans are financially incapable of handling a $400. emergency. That suggests that many Americans--possibly most--live on the edge financially, which is NOT good. In America, more & more wealth, ownership of property, ownership of businesses, etc, continues to funnel into the hands of the already ultra-rich--a small percentage of our population, while the vast majority of us work for them. Over time, American Capitalism has progressively become more & more monopolistic. When you walk into any grocery market, it's hard to imagine that everything for sale there is owned & controlled & provided by five major corporations. Those corporations own & control our entire national food supply. While we do enjoy a high standard of living, we don't have many social safeguards provided by less wealthy countries in Europe for their citizens, like universal healthcare, a retirement system that follows you thru life regardless of where you work or how many times you change jobs, a system of inexpensive child care for working parents, & a vacation allowance that is based on sustaining one's physical & mental health, & that allows for a minimum of six weeks paid vacation per year for every worker. America provides none of these. I think a nation's greatness isn't a measure of its wealth, or its productivity, or its ability to dictate terms to foreign countries, or its power to dominate others, but in its art, architecture, its science, literature, & its devotion to its own citizen's welfare. Right now America is lacking in these qualities, & under its current leadership, lacks honesty, integrity, trust & hope--all necessary for any "great" nation.

 

The past forty years have seen Republicans running large deficits. It's a bit more complicated than you suggest.

Absurd.

The people shouting the loudest are running businesses likely to spread the virus and find themselves faced with both shutdowns and missing customers.

I'm not a "Left Wing" anything. Get a clue.

There is no direct link between the quantity of money and prices. Why? Because the velocity of money changes.

The state can create as much money as it wishes, regardless. See Germany in the 1920s.

You might try understanding it before you try explaining.

You would do well not to destroy the purchasing power of money by causing inflation. As I told you, government can create money and hand it to people, but they should take care with how much money the create.

Think about people too young, too old, and too ill to work. Of course, there is a need for social programs.

There's no way to keep everyone happy and consuming at the level they did before the pandemic, but we don't have to starve people out.

 

I never have seen anyone dying in the streets. Sounds like maybe junkies or something. The culture I live in doesn't behave like that. Wait a minute.....how far is San Francisco from central Arizona?

Here's the difference. The farm community as stated in the scenario you painted, are people, like the Amish, that help eachother out as a way of life. There are no laws or enforcement that make them do it. They do it out of mutual interest and love. They do not take advantage of a "forced system". On the other hand, a "strong central government" is void of what I described. That system is based on laws and there are plenty that take advantage of those laws.

Their Dairyair.....I am quite happy to explain the difference in a system based on "individual rights" and one that overlooks the individual for the "collective".

 

Yes the complication - politically - is that most people think government budgets are like their own household budgets...and Repubs take full advantage of this false economic mythology.

Pass. I'm sure this will be dealt with below

Yes, but the government could simply inform them to "shut the door, take a holiday, and we will pay all your expenses during the pandemic".

You are voting for Biden. That's generally accepted as LW. Note I said "even"......you would think LW economists would be interested in the concept of government using its currency-issuing capacity in a pandemic, to avoid taxing or borrowing from private citizens.

Now your orthodoxy is showing.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/velocity.asp

"The velocity of money is a measurement of the rate at which money is exchanged in an economy. It is the number of times that money moves from one entity to another".

Just another example of orthodoxy worshipping money....which has no intinsic value. Real wealth is in the production and exchange of goods and services. All your clever theories about "velocity of money" are a diversion from the state's capacity to participate in the creation of money, to add (or subtract from) the money supply to maintain real full employment during the business cycle (in normal times).

God help us! You are a teacher of economics....

German manufacturing capacity was dismantled by the French in the 1920's, as war reparations.

I know that wealth creation involves public education, research, building public infrastructure, and a strong public sector that can direct economic activity to these things...as well as maintaining full employment through business cycles.

More orthodoxy. (It's like debating an ISIS theologian...)

Excess money supply doesn't cause inflation. Excessive demand on available resources, or a failure of productive capacity (as in the German example you mentioned above) will cause inflation. Stop worrying about money supply. Instead, promote research to invigorate productive capacity, eg, by enabling the state to spend its own currency; instead of allowing resources to be sucked up by Wall St. profit seekers working on elaborate derivatives to fuel the financial industry casino.

The state can always fund pensions as required (provided productive capacity is maintained). I was referring to welfare for able working-age people. Poverty-level welfare for able working-age citizens is a cop-out, evidence of failure to institute an adequate economic system that can maintain real full employment through the business cycle (in normal times)

Er, pandemics are not known as "happy" episodes in which everyone can keep consuming as before.

The point is to relieve everyone of the fear of financial ruin ... not to mention the fear of starvation and homelessness, by means of a government guarantee to cover all vital living expenses.

So...Relax. Exercise. Cook and eat good food at home. Enjoy the respite from the rat race, during the necessary lock-down. Explore the internet for its possibilities of self-improvement. Discover that happiness doesn't depend on consumerism, least of all junk-consumerism.

Geez...... the travails of debate with an ISIS theologian....

 

No it wasn't the Amish. It was America.
You don't thing the gov't should be about mutual interest and love of ALL Americans? Why?

So, according to you, love and interest should be personal. And the gov't has no business in getting personal with the citizens that elects said gov't? Even though, everyone who votes does so personally.
You big beef is because you think collective is terrible? But we live together as a collective.

 

Here's the orthodox view to back you up.

https://todayheadline.co/the-case-against-modern-monetary-theory/

Thanks to Covid-19, government debt is rising rapidly and, for that matter, appropriately. In the face of recurring lockdowns, we are better off allowing companies and workers to enter a period of economic “hibernation” in the hope that, once the virus is under control, they can thaw out. The alternative of multiple business failures and mass unemployment is of no use to anyone.

In the process, however, we are in effect borrowing from our collective economic futures. At some point, some of us will be presented with a bill which, if hibernation policies succeed, we will be in a reasonable position to pay. The political process will decide whether that bill comes in the form of higher taxes, more austerity, rising inflation or eventual default. That, I’m afraid, is the deficit reality.

How pathetic is that conclusion by an orthodox monetarist economy? His "deficit reality" is a myth.

The logical conclusion of his argument is that if we had a succession of pandemics, or indeed a severe pandemic of extended duration, then the sovereign currency-issuing state would go broke, and we would all starve.

Despite the fact that the necessary productive capacity and resources required to maintain individuals and businesses locked down during the period of pandemic-induced hibernation would remain intact and available.

 

OK, like I said, not important (see below) re my argument about an inadequate constitution that wants to avoid an adequate role for central government (because it's "oppresive") in favour of local (state) administration.

This is important.

General welfare clause
Description
A general welfare clause is a section that appears in many constitutions and in some charters and statutes that allows that the governing body empowered by the document to enact laws to promote the general welfare of the people, which is sometimes worded as the public welfare.

Get it? YOU choose those words to mean "the welfare of the government" so you can rule out any concept of a 'social contract' between government and the individuals governed.

But "self-evident truths" ARE guarantees by birthright, enshrined in law and not open to amendment (ie, "life, liberty. and pursuit of happiness"). As for the 2nd Amendment; it IS obsolete. It was designed to allow citizens in frontier communities to defend themselves against marauding natives and British mercenaries, not to allow citizens to arm themselves against their neighbours in highly populated modern cities in a settled modern nation with a capable military.

Not at all. "Property rights" (eg right to housing) are even guaranteed in communism.

You asked that question before. Of course I understand your a-moral "survival of the fittest", winner take all, mentality is not interested in the morality of a social contract.

BTW, I can mount an argument that a social contract IS implied in the US Constitution's general welfare clause (discussed above). But no doubt Judge Barrett will not argue it....just shows the effect of ideology on a judge's reasoning...

Guess what: you and I are humans. We have brain physiology with identifiable vestigial reptilian and mammalian sections, seats of instinctive and unconscious survival and competitive drives.

A nicely written paragraph with which I agree.

But it doesn't present the full story; "not mutually exclusive" does not mean the helping hand WILL be extended....and competition can indeed be deadly. That's why government is required to adjudicate the competition.

Addressed above. "Reality" needs government intervention to adjudicate between self-interested individuals; more on this below.

Note my underlined. When the authors understand that self-interest - like competition - has both positive and negative characteristics, they might have something sensible to say about Smith and Friedman.

No. Marx got that bit wrong. Better: to each according to effort.

Admittedly you are under the illusion that provision for the common welfare (with a minimum acceptable above poverty standard) means taking from some-one else. It does not; that's just a monetarist illusion; there are sufficient resources and productive capacity to guarantee above poverty participation.

But apart from your illusion, morality requires provision for the common welfare, if it CAN be done.

Already addressed. An obsolete "right".

No. A social contract, or provision for the general/common welfare, is not about gun ownership.

No. See above. General welfare involves guaranteed access to free education to the highest levels commensurate with individual ability, and then guaranteed above-poverty participation in the nation's development, according to ability.

Actually free postal services and free public transport are possibilities in a well run productive state employing everyone.....but the answer is no.

"Social contract theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons' moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement among them to form the society in which they live".

No that's NOT human nature. But the demoralization resulting from systemic factors like entrenched poverty, unemployment, and below poverty level wages, do result in loss of self-esteem and a desire to participate.

Like I said people don't choose those things, they are born into or fall into them. The solution is a guarantee of above poverty employment, remembering that this guarantee will not adversely affect you...on the contrary, your business will be much more successful in the absence of violent, poverty-stricken ghettos.

Those countries are hangovers from the USSR days; the collapse in oil revenues destroyed Venezuela (its popularly elected socialist government had wide-spread support before the oil-price collapse).

Btw, which of the major world economies is showing 4% growth at present?

 

So you believe a large Central Government should be in command of telling Americans who to love and how to love???? And in that "loving" they confiscate money by force?

We live together in collectives ,yes. The whole world is a collective, I guess. Do you think that collective should be ruled by a handful? (globalism) In my estimation, the family is my favorite collective. Then we have townships and Counties. See, I think the smaller collectives are more favorable and accountable to the individual.