Redistribution of American Wealth

No, you failed, we failed, everyone failed, 'cause 'we the people' elected the SOBs.

It's called democracy. Got a better idea? I'm all ears.

 

But if you look at the data, the wealthy by far pay much more in federal taxes. By all accounts, they are already paying their fair share.

 

You could start here:

https://money.cnn.com/2013/09/15/news/economy/income-inequality-obama/index.html

Or here:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...e-big-banks-rich-and-now-he-wants-a-thank-you

 

The ratio of money is what matters here. The wealthy have a higher and higher share of wealth and income. As a result they can have a higher and higher share of spending and anything money can buy. The same goes for the ratio of money between private spending and government spending, and government financed spending. We are all competing against each other for products, and that includes rich people and big corporations. When they have more of the money, they will be able to obtain a higher share of production leaving less for working class people.

In the case of rent, it isn't just middle-income people who are renting and are housing. It is wealthy people too and we are all competing with each other for housing indirectly. If wealthy have more and more money, then prices will go up not just for them but for everyone else. We have seen this happen for housing when high paid tech workers and business people moved into California and housing prices on all levels went up even for low income people.

The solution is to have a balance between wealthy and working class, government related spending from taxes and private spending.

Rich people invest in businesses that produce all the time. They also buy many products from businesses too.

That is only one side of the coin. Workers also consume. They give companies their money, which encourages those companies to hire, and to expand, and to produce.

I only believe in enacting policies that are beneficial for the general public. Justice should only be reserved for criminal courts. Every system requires balance to operate optimally.

 

I believe in whatever helps the economy and if it helps some groups more then I don’t care!!

 

Specifically I believe in whatever helps the general population who are mostly the working class. The wealthy are doing very well already and really don't need any help. But often we can indirectly help/hurt the working class by helping/hurting the wealthy.

 

Yes there is lots of waste in the Uber wealthy but totally cutting the fat serves no one.

 

How can you hurt the wealthy?

 

So where are Americans now? They are facing international pressure to equalize their wealth. Ok what legislation is necessary to take that wealth by force because they will not give it up voluntarily. Imagine if your even meager savings were so casually absconded.

 

There is no international pressure to equalise wealth. The US has maintained unfair trade patterns since GATT. How American nationalism reinvents reality is a tad of a nuisance

 

I was talking about rent in the economic sense: a return obtained by legally depriving others of access to economic opportunity that would otherwise be accessible.

But they don't typically invest in production per se. They want to invest in businesses that hold a monopoly privilege of some kind because that is more profitable than just producing goods and services.

But not as many as poorer people would buy with the same amount of money.

Everybody consumes. The distinctive character of the worker is that he contributes his labor to the production process.

All consumers do that, not just workers.

No, justice should be a fundamental mandate of all our economic institutions.

Yes, and the proper balance between justice and injustice is compassion towards the innocent even when that involves benefiting some of the less innocent who do not deserve it.

 

Increased demand increases supply, in a free society. There is little new about a wealth gap. 6,600-year-old gravesites in Poland suggest wealth gap existed earlier than thought.

 

That's how the market works. Tax cuts for wealthy people and corporations artificially increase supply. It's supposed to trickle down, but stock buybacks do nothing but increase the price of the stock, thus increasing the company's value, as well as major stockholders' wealth. They don't create a single job.

 

If you don't compete against cents on the dollar foreign wages , our wages are higher. You can't remember America prior to free trade?

The cheapest possible widget isn't more important than our economic health..That is why we went hundreds of years making our consumption.

 

If it's their money and they earned it lawfully, how they spend it is none of your business. Go find a product or service that others want, like they did, earn your own money lawfully, and spend it as you wish.

 

"lawfully" =/= "rightfully"

Google "externality" and start reading.

Natural resources like land are not a product or service. They are not produced by anyone. Their value comes from government and the community, not their private owners. Yet those private owners are lawfully entitled to pocket that publicly created value in return for no contribution to production. That is a form of stealing, however "lawful" it has been made.

As slave owners did by whipping their slaves to work harder when slavery was "lawful"...?

 

~ I need an aspirin ... `

 

If they lawfully earned it as much as they can earn. The founding fathers protect private property in the Constitution it's not something the government should have an interest.

 

The effective rate then is about the same if not a little higher than now.

 

They can be a product or a means of production. If left to the government or community it will just sit there adding nothing to the economy or the public in general. The value comes from someone willing to commit the capital and effort to improving it, obtaining minerals or other important resources which are needed for other production, working the land as a farm for crops or other agricultural and forest products. Government generally gets in the way of those efforts, some required some meant to obstruct for other reasons.

 

Nice lecture.

Again, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations artificially increase supply. Stock buybacks do not create one single job.

 

Lower wages isn't the only incentive for corporations to move their production outside of the USA.

We are also "outsourcing" our pollution. It's odd that the so-called 'environmentalists' don't raise a big fuss. Since we have higher environmental standards, I would think that they would be clamoring for production to be returned to the USA.

Those foreign countries do not have our protections of workers. It's odd that human rights activists aren't demanding that production be returned to the USA.

 

No they don't.

If they earned their money lawfully through freewill transactions and they want to invest their money into their own stock, it's none of your damn business.

You are similarly free to produce a good or provide a service that others desire, as they have, accumulate profits and spend it as you wish. You may even decide to invest it in your own business, as they have, and in our magnificent nation, that's no one's business but your own.

 

I know you're more educated than this. "No they don't" doesn't cut it. If you've ever studied economics, even only briefly, you know government influence in the economy through taxation is artificial. Government can stimulate and/or deter both capital investment and consumption through tax policy.

Do you think it's a good idea to give investors more money when the country was not in a state of underinvestment? Why do you think these corporations bought back stock? They were already profitable and firing on all cylinders. Giving trillions to companies that don't need it is not a wise economic decision. Especially if the goal is to create jobs. Isn't that what Trump is all about? The truth is, low unemployment happened despite Trump. Trump did nothing, (Except for the deficit spending, of course. Such a fiscal conservative, that Trump is.)

This is a childish response that has nothing to do with economics nor taxation.

 

What's really odd is that they're not all 49er's fans. San Francisco, you know.

Sorry, but that's not much worse than expecting environmentalists and human rights activists to also be protectionists.