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Federal Income Tax. You Pick the Rate.

Federal (Income) Tax. You Pick the Rate.

  • 5%

    Votes: 11 26.2%
  • 10%

    Votes: 7 16.7%
  • 15%

    Votes: 4 9.5%
  • 20%

    Votes: 6 14.3%
  • 25%

    Votes: 5 11.9%
  • 30%

    Votes: 2 4.8%
  • 35%

    Votes: 2 4.8%
  • 40%

    Votes: 2 4.8%
  • 45%

    Votes: 1 2.4%
  • 50% and higher

    Votes: 2 4.8%

  • Total voters
    42
  • Poll closed .
If I had to choose a percentage I would begin at 25% and work towards lowering it in the future. Of course we need to move from big government to small government.
 
That's far from being accurate. Establishing workers' ownership and management of firms will ensure a strong motivation to work, due to the equitable distribution of profits.

I can tell you straight up, I will not work under such conditions. So, I'm at least one person who would not be interested in the equitable distribution of profits. I want to be paid according to MY productivity, not yours. I'm not going to work my butt off while others benefit from my labor. I'll work as much as the laziest bastard there, so that whatever my share may be, I'll be getting the better value. I would feel disgusted behaving that way, but the alternative would be to work hard and not be paid fairly for my efforts.

Considering the oft-mentioned role of intergenerational transfers in aggregate capital accumulation, their role is typically that of "possessing" wealth rather than independently creating it.

Hogwash. No one wants to just keep their money. They want to invest it so that they can have MORE money. :)
 
I can tell you straight up, I will not work under such conditions. So, I'm at least one person who would not be interested in the equitable distribution of profits. I want to be paid according to MY productivity, not yours. I'm not going to work my butt off while others benefit from my labor. I'll work as much as the laziest bastard there, so that whatever my share may be, I'll be getting the better value. I would feel disgusted behaving that way, but the alternative would be to work hard and not be paid fairly for my efforts.

Then, as an incompetent/irresponsible worker, you would be fired. Worker-owned firms would not be able to maintain their stellar record of improved efficiency over the conventional capitalist firm if they retained those who were able but not willing to work.
 
Then, as an incompetent/irresponsible worker, you would be fired. Worker-owned firms would not be able to maintain their stellar record of improved efficiency over the conventional capitalist firm if they retained those who were able but not willing to work.

Really? Do you think it would be in the interest of the workers to create such insecure employment for themselves? After all, you would not be able to say, for them, how much they would need to work. You and I would only be one vote a piece. And, judging by your reaction, you and I would want to have as much opportunity to get rid of incompetent or lazy people, in order to increase productivity. But most people don't care about productivity. They want as much money for as little work as possible, and if the workers run the show, that is precisely what you will get. I'm not sure why you are expecting a different, more rational response.
 
Really? Do you think it would be in the interest of the workers to create such insecure employment for themselves? After all, you would not be able to say, for them, how much they would need to work. You and I would only be one vote a piece. And, judging by your reaction, you and I would want to have as much opportunity to get rid of incompetent or lazy people, in order to increase productivity. But most people don't care about productivity. They want as much money for as little work as possible, and if the workers run the show, that is precisely what you will get. I'm not sure why you are expecting a different, more rational response.

It's an obvious reality that people will seek to perform as little work for as much money as possible, but the capitalist economy is ill-suited to deal with this because a sufficiently high rate of equilibrium unemployment is used as a disciplinary stick to prevent workers from shirking. Since involuntary unemployment is a wasted resource, external inefficiency is thus a necessary condition of internal efficiency in a capitalist economy. A socialist economy is able to secure both internal and external efficiency by maintaining full employment and instead creating a positive motivation for work through equitable distribution of firm profits among all the workers rather than owners separate from the workers. This is why the empirical literature does not support your speculation, and instead reflects the superior efficiency of worker-owned enterprises, particularly those subject to democratic management. For instance, we could refer to Doucouliagos's Worker participation and productivity in labor-managed and participatory capitalist firms: A meta-analysis. Consider the abstract:

Using meta-analytic techniques, the author synthesizes the results of 43 published studies to investigate the effects on productivity of various forms of worker participation: worker participation in decision making; mandated codetermination; profit sharing; worker ownership (employee stock ownership or individual worker ownership of the firm's assets); and collective ownership of assets (workers' collective ownership of reserves over which they have no individual claim). He finds that codetermination laws are negatively associated with productivity, but profit sharing, worker ownership, and worker participation in decision making are all positively associated with productivity. All the observed correlations are stronger among labor-managed firms (firms owned and controlled by workers) than among participatory capitalist firms (firms adopting one or more participation schemes involving employees, such as ESOPs or quality circles).

We are thus not only able to observe the positive link between workers' ownership and efficiency, but the augmentation of that positive link ensured by the establishment of workplace democracy. All in all, it's similarly rational to establish a socialism and thus extend democracy into the economic realm.
 
Come now! The rational analysis will identify the financial class as the true "parasites."

The rational analysis will show that the financial sector provides an actual service.

The parasite class, by definition, does not.

I've already discussed "the role of intergenerational transfers in aggregate capital accumulation" elsewhere, which well identifies the lack of legitimate effort or just gains in the vast majority of that aggregate capital accumulation by the financial class. Considering their ultimate idleness, they serve little purpose other than provision of capital, which would be more efficiently accomplished through their dispossession and collectivization of the means of production. And as I always say, a picture speaks a thousand words!

ed4a754f.png

I can see more than one reason for demanding English to be the national language.

Providing capital is a purpose, is it not?

Providing capital is a necessary purpose, is it not?

Therefore, your argument that they're useless is invalidated by your own words.
 
Considering the oft-mentioned role of intergenerational transfers in aggregate capital accumulation,

I believe that's called "inheritance" in the real world.

Since the people (government) claiming the money didn't do anything or take any risks to earn it, clearly their claim should be null and void and 100% of all inheritance should be passed on to the heirs of the estate.
 
That's far from being accurate. Establishing workers' ownership and management of firms will ensure a strong motivation to work, due to the equitable distribution of profits.



Considering the oft-mentioned role of intergenerational transfers in aggregate capital accumulation, their role is typically that of "possessing" wealth rather than independently creating it.

?? where are you gettting those crazy ideas??

competition nearly always increases efficency, if you have an example of the efficency of collective economies you need an example before you type that.

I can name some, India, China and Singapore.


What do you mean wealth is "possessed" instead of created in the world? how do you explain the large economic growth in China from some free market principles? Therefore, the wealth is created and is not stagnant in each country.

you need example and evidence for what you say.
 
I believe that's called "inheritance" in the real world.

Since the people (government) claiming the money didn't do anything or take any risks to earn it, clearly their claim should be null and void and 100% of all inheritance should be passed on to the heirs of the estate.

I support inheritance taxes. If someone gets money themselves then they have proven that they can invest it well. However, there is no reason that the people who recieve the inheritance money would be any better then anyone else. So we might as well reduce everyone's normal tax burdon.

Also, it is not fair for someone to get all of the advantages in life just because they were close to a rich person. People's skills should be the most of the determinant of their wealth as an adult.
 
Come now! The rational analysis will identify the financial class as the true "parasites." I've already discussed "the role of intergenerational transfers in aggregate capital accumulation" elsewhere, which well identifies the lack of legitimate effort or just gains in the vast majority of that aggregate capital accumulation by the financial class.
I'm curious to know what you find is a "legitimate effort" or "just gain".

Considering their ultimate idleness, they serve little purpose other than provision of capital
So what non-idleness must be met to satisfy your demands else you believe it "justified" to take their wealth for more "purposeful" means?

which would be more efficiently accomplished through their dispossession and collectivization of the means of production. And as I always say, a picture speaks a thousand words!

ed4a754f.png

Because we all know:
1) attaining wealth is easy and only gets easier the more you make.
2) managing wealth is easy and only gets easier the more you have.
3) perpetuating your wealth is easy and only gets easier the longer you have it.
4) attaining more wealth once you have wealth is child play.
:roll:
 
It's an obvious reality that people will seek to perform as little work for as much money as possible, but the capitalist economy is ill-suited to deal with this because a sufficiently high rate of equilibrium unemployment is used as a disciplinary stick to prevent workers from shirking. Since involuntary unemployment is a wasted resource, external inefficiency is thus a necessary condition of internal efficiency in a capitalist economy.

Yes, however, were we to get rid of Heath and Human Services and Social Security, the fiscal equation balances out quite nicely. If you produce nothing, you can consume only what other people choose to share with you. If there is no charity, than the unemployed worker will be forced to work harder in order to maintain employment, thus encouraging more productive citizens in a more productive society.

A socialist economy is able to secure both internal and external efficiency by maintaining full employment and instead creating a positive motivation for work through equitable distribution of firm profits among all the workers rather than owners separate from the workers. This is why the empirical literature does not support your speculation, and instead reflects the superior efficiency of worker-owned enterprises, particularly those subject to democratic management. For instance, we could refer to Doucouliagos's Worker participation and productivity in labor-managed and participatory capitalist firms: A meta-analysis. Consider the abstract:

We are thus not only able to observe the positive link between workers' ownership and efficiency, but the augmentation of that positive link ensured by the establishment of workplace democracy. All in all, it's similarly rational to establish a socialism and thus extend democracy into the economic realm.

I see no credibility whatsoever to the claim that worker-owned companies are in any way more efficient. It's utterly counter intuitive. Now, we'll see how GM does. That is a worker-owned company, in part. If GM becomes increasingly efficient and efficacious over the next twenty-five years, then maybe we'll have ourselves a real case study. But, human nature and every experience we have of it, demonstrates that people work harder the more invested and responsible they are for the product. So long as there is an inequality in self-motivation, character, and self-discipline, there will be more and less productive people, demanding an inequitable, uneven, but nevertheless fair, distribution of wealth. People that try to curb, manipulate, or condition human nature, simply by ignoring the obviousness of the truth, tend to do so at their own peril.
 
I support inheritance taxes.

Gee, that's a big surprise.

Just think, the government didn't do anything to earn the money.

The government didn't take any risks for it.

It's not any part of the government's money.

But you support the government stealing it from the people it belongs to.

How wonderful of you.

If someone gets money themselves then they have proven that they can invest it well.

See any place in the Constitution that requires a person to prove they can accomplish something before their parents can give them money?

Funny, I can't find it either.

However, there is no reason that the people who recieve the inheritance money would be any better then anyone else.

There's one absolute reason. It's not the government's money, it's the person who earned it's money. Unless that person writes a will giving the money away to greedy thieves who will strip his heirs of every penny they can grab, there's no reason to assume that person wants his money to go to the government.

So we might as well reduce everyone's normal tax burdon.

Easily done. Cut the tax rates.

Also, it is not fair

Life's not fair. It's a ****in' bitch. Quit whining.

for someone to get all of the advantages in life just because they were close to a rich person.

Your momma didn't slap you enough to make you stop crying, I see.

People's skills should be the most of the determinant of their wealth as an adult.

I have this feeling you do not know the words to The Beatles "Taxman" but you sing "Kumbaya" in your sleep.
 
Gee, that's a big surprise.

Just think, the government didn't do anything to earn the money.

The government didn't take any risks for it.

It's not any part of the government's money.

But you support the government stealing it from the people it belongs to.

How wonderful of you.



See any place in the Constitution that requires a person to prove they can accomplish something before their parents can give them money?

Funny, I can't find it either.



There's one absolute reason. It's not the government's money, it's the person who earned it's money. Unless that person writes a will giving the money away to greedy thieves who will strip his heirs of every penny they can grab, there's no reason to assume that person wants his money to go to the government.



Easily done. Cut the tax rates.



Life's not fair. It's a ****in' bitch. Quit whining.



Your momma didn't slap you enough to make you stop crying, I see.



I have this feeling you do not know the words to The Beatles "Taxman" but you sing "Kumbaya" in your sleep.

Lol if your only responce is life isn't fair, when we can make it fair easily then your arguement makes no sense.

It can be at the state level if you want to complain about Constitution issues. The state laws can be based on where the money was made, so people couldn't just change states before they die to protect their wealth.

Have a good day :roll:
 
Gee, that's a big surprise.

Just think, the government didn't do anything to earn the money.

The government didn't take any risks for it.

It's not any part of the government's money.

But you support the government stealing it from the people it belongs to.

How wonderful of you.



See any place in the Constitution that requires a person to prove they can accomplish something before their parents can give them money?

Funny, I can't find it either.



There's one absolute reason. It's not the government's money, it's the person who earned it's money. Unless that person writes a will giving the money away to greedy thieves who will strip his heirs of every penny they can grab, there's no reason to assume that person wants his money to go to the government.



Easily done. Cut the tax rates.



Life's not fair. It's a ****in' bitch. Quit whining.



Your momma didn't slap you enough to make you stop crying, I see.



I have this feeling you do not know the words to The Beatles "Taxman" but you sing "Kumbaya" in your sleep.

Lol if your only responce is life isn't fair, when we can make it fair easily then you lose.

It can be at the state level if you want to complain about Constitution issues. The state laws can be based on where the money was made, so people couldn't just change states before they die to protect their wealth.


and if you don't have anything helpful to say then please don't respond to my posts. I don't really care about your wining about life.
 
How?

How are you merely stating my position?

You espoused it, I simply repeated it.
You are an IRS expanding, social engineering wingnut.

You claimed the tax code wasn't too complex, shouldn't be scrapped, then a few lines later complained people were stupid about taxes... ROTFLMFAO.

It's simply hilarious. You like pissing into the wind, giving yourself a golden shower I see.

2) Is merely a side effect of complexity. Reforming the tax code will make it significently easier to understand. Again, reform, not scrap.

3) The IRS actually is too small and underfunded.

6) Taxes as a form of social policy isn't inherently a bad idea. Smoking costs the nation billions in healthcare and billions in lost productivity. Furthermore, tax as a social policy lead to renewable energy systems which are getting us off foreign fossil fuels.

7) Your article is as ignorant as most people here about taxes. Marginal tax rates don't tell us much. What we want to look at is the effective tax rates.

A bit of a primer. What our system does now is to encourage rich people to change how their get their income, not by working but by investing which IMO is actually pretty good as we need rich people to provide capital. By encouraging them to earn their money by passive methods we ensure that there will be large private capital reserves to fund new businesses and new ideas.

.
 
Inheritance tax... do any of you even know why it was instituted in the first place? It doesn't seem like it.

In 1916 Congress for the first time levied a tax upon the transfer of a decedent's net estate. The Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives explained that a new type of tax was needed, because the "consumption taxes" in effect at that time bore most heavily upon those least able to pay them. The Committee further explained that the revenue system should be more evenly and equitably balanced and "a larger portion of our necessary revenues collected from the incomes and inheritances of those deriving the most benefit and protection from the Government."

The Committee recommended an estate tax rather than an inheritance tax because many states already imposed inheritance taxes. It felt that the estate tax helped to form a well-balanced system of inheritance taxation between the Federal Government and the various states and that an estate tax could be readily administered with less conflict than a tax based upon inherited shares.

Various changes in the estate tax provisions of law, as well as their repeal, have been proposed over the years, but the principle has been retained. Our office has available an excerpt from the Ways and Means Committee's report on the Revenue Act of 1935. The report reproduces a June 19, 1935, message from President Roosevelt to Congress advocating an inheritance tax, in addition to the estate tax. Although the inheritance tax proposal was not adopted, the message provides information on why the taxation of individuals' estates was considered appropriate.

U.S. Treasury - FAQs: History of the U.S. Tax System
 
Yes.

The government wanted to steal money.

You may use more syllables, you won't change the conclusion.
Yeah, and it's worked out pretty good. The country didn't go into ruins, the rich continue to get richer, the rich didn't stop creating jobs... blah blah [insert repub talking point here].
 
The rational analysis will show that the financial sector provides an actual service.

The parasite class, by definition, does not.

Merely hoarding and "supplying" capital is not an actual service.

I can see more than one reason for demanding English to be the national language.

Our first agreement. "Demanding English to be"? :2wave:

Providing capital is a purpose, is it not?

Providing capital is a necessary purpose, is it not?

Therefore, your argument that they're useless is invalidated by your own words.

The provision of capital is a necessary purpose. Merely "providing capital" and engaging in no other productive activity is both unnecessary and inefficient.

Since the people (government) claiming the money didn't do anything or take any risks to earn it, clearly their claim should be null and void and 100% of all inheritance should be passed on to the heirs of the estate.

Considering the positive connection between efficiency and equity, it's mere economic rationality to ensure equality of opportunity. I know John and Ken don't tell you about this stuff, but please do try to keep up. :)

?? where are you gettting those crazy ideas??

From basic economic principles supported by empirical research.

competition nearly always increases efficency

I haven't actually claimed otherwise in this thread. Your problem is that you've committed the standard economic error of assuming socialism to be synonymous with a command economy and central planning.

if you have an example of the efficency of collective economies you need an example before you type that.

Certainly. We could refer to the beneficial effects of the establishment of libertarian socialism during the Spanish Revolution on the Spanish region of Aragon. Will that suffice?

I can name some, India, China and Singapore.

Please elaborate. I'd certainly be interested in hearing about the advent of socialism in India, China, and Singapore.

What do you mean wealth is "possessed" instead of created in the world?

I'm referring to the private ownership of the means of production being an inheritance from an openly coercive phase of primitive accumulation, as well as the relative idleness of the financial class in providing any socially useful purpose.

how do you explain the large economic growth in China from some free market principles? Therefore, the wealth is created and is not stagnant in each country.

There are no "free markets" present in China any more than there are "free markets" present in the capitalist economy. The markets that exist in China are state capitalist in nature, subject to bureaucratic and authoritarian management rather than collective ownership and management.

you need example and evidence for what you say.

Which has been presented and summarily ignored by you.

I'm curious to know what you find is a "legitimate effort" or "just gain".

Actual work and fair acquisition. The current state of affairs violates the Lockean provisos established by so prominent an advocate of capitalism as Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

So what non-idleness must be met to satisfy your demands else you believe it "justified" to take their wealth for more "purposeful" means?

"Take *their* wealth"? Capital accumulation is based on theft (considering the role of the openly coercive phase of primitive accumulation), and the private ownership of the means of production creates a state of affairs that would accurately be condemned as an authoritarian social structure if manifested through the vessel of a state, and involves conditions wherein much economic structure is owned and controlled by an elite few not subject to democratic check or recall, and institute hierarchical management on the individual firm level.

Because we all know:
1) attaining wealth is easy and only gets easier the more you make.
2) managing wealth is easy and only gets easier the more you have.
3) perpetuating your wealth is easy and only gets easier the longer you have it.
4) attaining more wealth once you have wealth is child play.
:roll:

I'd never claim anything of the sort. Considering the limited social mobility that hampers equality of opportunity in the U.S., the reality is starkly different.

Yes, however, were we to get rid of Heath and Human Services and Social Security, the fiscal equation balances out quite nicely. If you produce nothing, you can consume only what other people choose to share with you. If there is no charity, than the unemployed worker will be forced to work harder in order to maintain employment, thus encouraging more productive citizens in a more productive society.

This is an absurdly crude and utopian understanding that fails to incorporate the reality of frictions, for one thing. A welfare state is a necessary component in maintaining the physical efficiency of the working class; for instance, job search frictions function as obstacles to a quick and easy selection, and unemployment benefits thus enable one to conduct a more thorough and effective search, which encourages skill set matches and the elimination of underemployment.

I see no credibility whatsoever to the claim that worker-owned companies are in any way more efficient. It's utterly counter intuitive.

This isn't an impressive spectacle. You've managed to ignore the empirical research on the matter because damn it, you've got a hunch! :roll:

Now, we'll see how GM does. That is a worker-owned company, in part. If GM becomes increasingly efficient and efficacious over the next twenty-five years, then maybe we'll have ourselves a real case study. But, human nature and every experience we have of it, demonstrates that people work harder the more invested and responsible they are for the product.

That's very much correct, and since the divorce and ownership of control that characterizes the conventional capitalist firms causes principal-agent problems, such a state of affairs acts directly contrary to the establishment of personal investment and responsibility. You must suffer from a rather uncomfortable cognitive dissonance.

So long as there is an inequality in self-motivation, character, and self-discipline, there will be more and less productive people, demanding an inequitable, uneven, but nevertheless fair, distribution of wealth. People that try to curb, manipulate, or condition human nature, simply by ignoring the obviousness of the truth, tend to do so at their own peril.

You've illustrated a rather expansive ignorance of human nature yourself by effectively reducing the labor market to a collection of factors of production. Conversely, socialists long ago mastered knowledge of human nature and its political applications. I sense that you've not heard of Peter Kropotkin or Mutual Aid.
 
Merely hoarding and "supplying" capital is not an actual service.

Really?

It's not?

How's the economic performance of countries that don't have any capital?

The provision of capital is a necessary purpose.

No. It is not. A person with capital has every freedom to sit back and spend it all on booze, broads, and bingo if that's his wish, and when it's all gone, it will have never served a productive purpose, ie, grown and expanded it's influence to create even more jobs.

Watch Brewster's Millions.

Merely "providing capital" and engaging in no other productive activity is both unnecessary and inefficient.

So, someone just said the provision of capital is a necessary purpose, and someone later said (in the next sentence) that providing capital is unnecessary.

Since you posted both sentences, I'll let you deal with your emotional and intellectual dishonesty.

Considering the positive connection between efficiency and equity, it's mere economic rationality to ensure equality of opportunity. I know John and Ken don't tell you about this stuff, but please do try to keep up. :)

Economic efficiency is achieved by not robbing people who have capital and getting out of their way when they're investing it. It's their money, and people usually watch their own money carefully. Very carefully indeed, usually.

Equality of opportunity starts with laws against robbing the successful.

Since the government has no claim on the money outside of their guns, you haven't established any rationale for allowing the government to steal someone's inheritance.

Know what your problem is? You either don't have a rich uncle, or you do and he told you that he's not gonna leave any of his money to a socialist, he's going to marry a fat Playboy centerfold and die with a huge smile on his face, and she'll get the money.

Envy is the reason the common people support punitive and confiscatory taxation, and no other reason exists.
 
Actual work and fair acquisition. The current state of affairs violates the Lockean provisos established by so prominent an advocate of capitalism as Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia.
Well you'll have to excuse me if I don't quite have the economics hard-on you do such that I have read Robert Nozick's book or studied his theories.;)

"Take *their* wealth"? Capital accumulation is based on theft (considering the role of the openly coercive phase of primitive accumulation), and the private ownership of the means of production creates a state of affairs that would accurately be condemned as an authoritarian social structure if manifested through the vessel of a state, and involves conditions wherein much economic structure is owned and controlled by an elite few not subject to democratic check or recall, and institute hierarchical management on the individual firm level.
IOW, if I own a business I get to decide how I run it.... within the confines of labor laws and other worker protection mechanisms. I don't find anything objectionable with that.

I'd never claim anything of the sort. Considering the limited social mobility that hampers equality of opportunity in the U.S., the reality is starkly different.
So at what point of wealth does my money begin duplicating itself with minimal effort? I'm very goal oriented so perhaps you could give me something to shoot for.:)
 
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