Would you accept a tax hike if it meant higher taxes on the rich?

Then why don't you know anything about taxation economics?

I am stating the facts. You just happen not to be aware of them.

They would pay tax as workers, through burden shifting, and being low-income is not the same as being poor. A billionaire who has no income is low-income. That doesn't mean he shouldn't pay any tax. You need to understand that what you call, "capital accumulation" is merely accumulation of privilege in the hands of the privileged.

Yes, but we have to do something that, unlike your anti-economic nonsense, would actually work.

 

Because you are an economist, you are unable to understand the difference between investment that increases production and rent seeking that impedes production. Mainstream neoclassical economics has erased the concepts that would make such a distinction possible.

No, you simply haven't thought through the implications. More consumption means MORE investment because when people consume, the ones who get the money they spend are producers, who know better than anyone else how to invest that money to produce even more. Giving money to rich people doesn't increase production, it only increases "investment" -- i.e., the prices they bid for each other's rent collection privileges.

 

There is a difference between investment that increases production and merely bidding up the prices of rent collection privileges. I don't propose to tax investment that increases production, only "investment" in rent collection privileges. As an economist, you should know -- though apparently you do not -- that a tax on the economic rent of privilege is efficient, and does not inhibit productive investment. By contrast, when you tax consumption, you tax production. Why doesn't a soi-disant economist know anything about tax incidence and burden shifting?

Wrong. Encouraging consumption encourages productive investment because the people who get the money consumers spend on consumption are precisely producers -- not idle rent seekers who call themselves "investors." Why is a soi-disant economist unaware of the effect of massively increased consumption -- of war materiel -- on productive investment during WW II?

It's true that I consider some environmental "problems" to be greatly overblown, especially CO2 and loss of biodiversity. Nevertheless, there are some specific environmental problems like toxic waste, deforestation and over-fishing that are related to consumption and have to be addressed. However, those problems are not inherent in consumption, and have to be addressed anyway.

I know very well how smart I am, and I have the IQ test scores to prove it.

 

The middle class is targeted by sales tax and the income tax on wages. But the great majority of real estate is owned by corporations and the rich people who own the corporations. They therefore pay most of the property tax, which is why the property tax is always demonized by people who serve the interests of rich, greedy, privileged parasites.

They don't. The rich do.

 

Lots of anecdotal evidence. Free public education, subsidized medical care, SNAP, disability—those are big ticket items.

 

As you wish.

 

Point taken.

 

The easiest solution is to change the nature of land ownership.

 

Oh, please—spare us the woofing.

I didn't say who gets the return on capital or how we divide up ownership.

Boorish. Self-important.

 

Of course, I understand the difference. Economists know the difference and are critical on unproductive investments. private and public.

Capital markets are rigged to reward rent seeking and the return to labor is declining relative to capital. That and schemes to relieve folks of their assets are creating a political, social and economic crisis.

I wouldn't reward rent seeking.

 

That's the idea behind the Fair Tax Act. A national sales tax on the retail level only (as opposed to the VAT at all points along production) with a "prebate" to all citizens equivalent to the taxes needed to purchase the basic necessities. And it would be much easier to track. Right now we have to track all individuals AND all businesses. Under Fair Tax, only the retail businesses need to be tracked.

 

Studies have been done. It still wouldn't be enough to satisfy the budget.

 

What I said--don't reward rent seeking behavior that includes rigging capital markets.

Moi. I created a business when I was younger, but I used my understanding of markets and computers to effortlessly amass wealth.

I also taught American history.
[QUOTE="bringiton, post: 1073244521, member: 70792"
It's true that I consider some environmental "problems" to be greatly overblown, especially CO2 and loss of biodiversity.[/QUOTE]
Last summer, Lytton, British Columbia three days in a row recorded the highest temperature ever recorded anywhere in Canada, the second highest temperature of all time in North America, and then burned to the ground on the fourth day. Climate change.
[QUOTE="bringiton, post: 1073244521, member: 70792"
Nevertheless, there are some specific environmental problems like toxic waste, deforestation and over-fishing that are related to consumption and have to be addressed. However, those problems are not inherent in consumption, and have to be addressed anyway.

I know very well how smart I am, and I have the IQ test scores to prove it.[/QUOTE]
Like this guy...?

 

I think your comment goes by a bit fast without addressing a serious point about some on the left being unable to see we need to be more careful with our government spending.

 

Which only illustrates that it's a multi prong problem and there is no one solution like raising taxes, taxing the rich, or no taxes for the poor, or all the various budget so called solutions, where it is touted that that one measured will handle the problem.

That aside, I was answering in reference to the posters question, which seemed to me to be looking at the idea in a vacuum.

 

And those who "benefit" from them have to first pay landowners full market value just for permission to access them.

 

If you really are an economist, explain to us, in your own words, how the consumption tax that you advocate is partially shifted onto production, aggravating scarcity.

Do you advocate something fairer, more efficient, and less anti-economic on those issues than the consumption tax you advocate to obtain public revenue?

But factually correct.

 

Yes, by requiring the holders of exclusive land tenure -- i.e., in the present system, landowners -- to repay the community for what they are taking from the community. That is what I advocate. You, by contrast, apparently advocate taxing consumption to fund welfare subsidy giveaways to those who hold privileges like land titles.

 

Yes, I just wanted to reemphasize what I think is an important point about the cost of fixing problems. Some leftwingers are pushing unrealistic solutions. Example: the Green New Deal wanting retrofit all homes to reduce energy consumption for heating and cooling. Some homes are too old and close to replacing to have it make sense at We should probably wait, too, on subsidizing solar roof panels.

 

No you don't. If you did, you would not advocate taxing consumption rather than rent collection privileges.

No they don't, because there is no such concept as "legalized stealing" in modern mainstream neoclassical economics. All legally obtained returns are deemed to have been earned by commensurate contributions to production. That is the basic axiom of JB Clark's "The Distribution of Wealth: A Theory of Wages, Interest and Profits," the founding document of modern mainstream neoclassical economics.

No they aren't. They spend all their time rationalizing and justifying unproductive investments in rent collection privileges as merely the outcome of an "efficient market."

It's not the markets that are rigged to reward rent seeking, it's the basic institutions of society that create privileges like land titles, IP monopolies, bank licenses, etc.

See? You don't know the difference between assets that represent commensurate contributions to production and assets that only entitle their owners to extract a portion of production in return for no commensurate contribution to it. If you knew the difference, you would know that we should relieve folks of the latter type of assets, because they are what is actually causing the political, social, and economic crises.

Sure you would, because you advocate taxing consumption rather than privilege. What would the consumption tax revenue be spent on? Maybe provision of desirable public services and infrastructure? How can you avoid rewarding rent seeking if you don't require repayment of the increased location rents the public spending of consumption tax revenue creates, hmmmmmmm?

 

The "Fair" Tax is self-evidently nothing but a disingenuous scheme to shift the burden of taxation even more off the super-duper uber-rich and onto everyone else.

 

Please explain how you can fund expenditures on desirable public services and infrastructure from consumption tax revenues without rewarding rent seeking behavior.

The question is not whether you amassed wealth with or without effort, but whether you amassed it by production, thus making the community richer, by perspicacity, thus making the community neither richer nor poorer, or by privilege, thus making the community poorer.

Yet you are somehow unaware of the fact that massive consumption of war materiel in WW II caused massive productive investment that would not have occurred in the absence of such consumption, a fact of history that directly contradicts your claim that consumption somehow impedes investment.

That is not terribly surprising, as Lytton has historically recorded the highest summertime temperatures in Canada more often than any other location, and the highest sustained solar activity in thousands of years returned global temperatures to more normal Holocene levels in the 20th century following the coldest 500-year period in the last 10,000 years. When your temperature records begin at the end of a cyclical cold period, it should not be surprising that the trend is up, or that there are often record highs.

Nonsense. Many stations in North America have posted temperatures higher than Lytton's record. Death Valley exceeds it almost every summer.

Are you perhaps unaware that climate has always changed, or that forest fires have been periodically sweeping through the Lytton area for thousands of years?

No. AFAIK Trump has no IQ test scores comparable to mine. However, it would be a mistake to think Trump is not an intelligent man merely because he is also a classic narcissistic sociopath. No one could have achieved what he has achieved without, at a minimum, a remarkable level of sheer animal cunning.

 

The argument's for taxation methods are quite separate from from what programs other things to used the father's funds for.

 

Instead of just dismissively crying "self-evident, provide that evidence. Also do so without actually changing what is proposed, which is what most opponents do. To only claim self-evident is to say you can't come up with an argument so you pretend everyone should already know the reasons you can't come up with.

 

The net effect initially is to make consumer goods and services more expensive overall and producer goods less expensive.

"Fairer" to whom? Low income people would pay less in taxes, middle income would be in a saw-off, and high income groups would have higher taxes. Of course, it depends upon how much we might subsidize basic consumption and the tax rate.

We would overall save money on tax collection because we would eliminate income taxes. Really rich people will have to pay more.