Why shouldn't capitalism be better regulated?

[bomberfox]

People that refer to the top rates should clarify we are usually talking about top marginal tax rates.

 

[phattonez]

just as henry ford put buggy whip makers out of business

your point?

technology will continue to march on

some jobs will be created with it, and some jobs lost

the good paying white collar jobs of the 50's for pushing a button are gone....you have to have skills....

they can be educational or vocational but you better be able to do something that the average joe cant do if you want to make a decent living

supply and demand is still the way our system works...and i dont see that changing anytime soon

Henry Ford also employed a lot of people and paid them a relatively high wage. Today's tech queens? They hire Indians and pay them terribly.

 

[gdgyva]

My personal opinion is reagan started the decline of the middle class and the push for money going from the bottom to the top and the republicans have carried on that mantra ever since.

Close all the loopholes that corporations use to shield their money. No offshore accounts etc. etc. A progressive taxing system. Health care and a living wage relative to where you live. Democratic socialism where the workers have more say in the system. Unions. There is no reason the top ten percent of america should control the other ninety. That in my opinion is not a working democracy.

we dont live in a democracy

never have, never will

and if you want a socialistic society move to one....

 

[KLATTU]

Same old stale leftist talking points . Corporations
make all the money but keep it for themselves., exploiting the workers, by paying them peanuts.

 

[Gimmesometruth]

Because of course their were no rich people before Reagan.

By the way..the income tax system is definitely more progressive now..than it was under Reagan.

In fact.. taxes as a whole are probably more progressive now than it was under Reagan.

I think that is an incorrect assumption.

 

[DifferentDrummr]

Same old stale leftist talking points . Corporations
make all the money but keep it for themselves., exploiting the workers, by paying them peanuts.

Why not try looking for a job and seeing for yourself?

 

[KLATTU]

Why not try looking for a job and seeing for yourself?

It's great time to be looking for a job. Not sure what point you are trying to make?

 

[DifferentDrummr]

It's great time to be looking for a job. Not sure what point you are trying to make?

The point was a challenge to find a job that actually pays whatever your skills are worth in the market. Of course, I'm assuming you have skills...

 

[jaeger19]

I think that is an incorrect assumption.

\
Well..you are certainly welcome to find some facts to dispute that.

The income tax has definitely become way more progressive. To the point where people who have paid no taxes into the Treasury.. get taxes from other people back in the form of credits.

The question would be all taxes.. but in Reagans day.. Reagan reduced taxes.. but then later he increased taxes..and many of those taxes were on poor and middle class workers.. with taxes that were less progressive like speeding up the increases in wages taxes.. and continuing a telephone excise tax.

The question would be today if sales taxes, etc.. have increased to the point where they balance out increase progressiveness of todays income taxes.

 

[KLATTU]

The point was a challenge to find a job that actually pays whatever your skills are worth in the market. Of course, I'm assuming you have skills...

Still not following . I hope you aren't implying that can't be done?

 

[DifferentDrummr]

Still not following . I hope you aren't implying that can't be done?

In your case, perhaps not. :lamo

But, in all seriousness, we have far too many employers whining that they "can't fill jobs" when what they actually mean is "we can't fill jobs at half the market rate."

 

[Gimmesometruth]

\
Well..you are certainly welcome to find some facts to dispute that.

I just posted one, when are you?

The income tax has definitely become way more progressive. To the point where people who have paid no taxes into the Treasury.. get taxes from other people back in the form of credits.

Still waiting for your evidence, your facts, concerning the LEVEL of "progressiveness" of federal income taxation. Nothing yet. And lets add in the idea that income tax revenue from the lowest quintile has always been minimal, so the idea that it matters what that level is collected from them rather moot.

The question would be all taxes.

Well, now ur just moving the goalpost, but if you want to include state county and local taxes, it just gets worse for you, those taxes are notoriously REGRESSIVE.

but in Reagans day.. Reagan reduced taxes.. but then later he increased taxes..and many of those taxes were on poor and middle class workers.. with taxes that were less progressive like speeding up the increases in wages taxes.. and continuing a telephone excise tax.

The question would be today if sales taxes, etc.. have increased to the point where they balance out increase progressiveness of todays income taxes.

LOL....ur undercutting your argument that taxes are less progressive.....why do you do this to yourself?

 

[KLATTU]

In your case, perhaps not. :lamo

But, in all seriousness, we have far too many employers whining that they "can't fill jobs" when what they actually mean is "we can't fill jobs at half the market rate."

Well, I doubt there any employers making that claim. If they can't hire people because they can't afford to pay at or near market rate, they''ll either up their rate or go out of business.

 

[DifferentDrummr]

Well, I doubt there any employers making that claim. If they can't hire people because they can't afford to pay at or near market rate, they''ll either up their rate or go out of business.

What do you think the motivation for programs like the H1B visa is?

 

[jaeger19]

I just posted one, when are you?

No you didn't.. not in your post 130.. which is what I answered to. but you are welcome to provide something other than your opinion.

Still waiting for your evidence, your facts, concerning the LEVEL of "progressiveness" of federal income taxation

Waiting for what? You never asked. But okay..if you need some evidence because you obviously can't do any research on your own.

Federal Tax System Becoming More Progressive: Report | The Fiscal Times

And lets add in the idea that income tax revenue from the lowest quintile has always been minimal, so the idea that it matters what that level is collected from them rather moot.

Now that's complete BS for a very good reason. While the actual revenue has been minimal.. the actual tax rate has not been.. and that means that this historically had a profound effect on the poor. Sure you may think collecting 200 dollars from a person barely making it financially is "moot"...but a 200 dollars collected from someone in th e lowest quintile.. can mean the difference between their child having a warm coat in the winter.. or going cold.

Sure as heck..isn;t moot to someone at poverty level. :doh

Well, now ur just moving the goalpost, but if you want to include state county and local taxes, it just gets worse for you, those taxes are notoriously REGRESSIVE.

yeah no..not moving anything. I already pointed out that state and local taxes.. like sales taxes are more regressive. Seriously. already pointed that out.. and so.. while our income tax is more progressive.. total taxes may not be more progressive than back in Reagans day.. .

Its what I already said Gimmee… what the heck is your problem?

OL....ur undercutting your argument that taxes are less progressive.....why do you do this to yourself?

Well.. I don't considering being thoughtful is "undercutting myself". I know that income taxes have become more progressive.. (though it might be questionable after Trumps tax cut)… but generally..income taxes have become more progressive because the burden of income taxes has been reduced on the poor and middle class.


But.. there are also other taxes that are in play.. that are more regressive like sales taxes.


Whats your problem gimme? Why do you have a problem with me pointing out that there are other taxes.. like sales taxes that are regressive? You seem to have a hard time dealing with facts.

 

[jaeger19]

Well, I doubt there any employers making that claim. If they can't hire people because they can't afford to pay at or near market rate, they''ll either up their rate or go out of business.

Actually that's exactly what a lot of employers are doing.

 

[Pujuhan]

We have FIRE regulations for a reason, yes?
Fire can be a useful tool, because it can warm your home, forge your steel and iron, cook your food, etc.
It can also burn down entire towns if left unchecked.

Capitalism is a lot like FIRE. Left unregulated and unchecked, it can become predatory and very damaging, and it can unearth some pretty awful unintended consequences. And yet when properly harnessed, capitalism can lift entire generations out of poverty, stimulate innovation and launch entirely new industries. Capitalism has demonstrated the capability to serve as a useful and rewarding tool to serve the middle class if it operates under the right kind of regulation.

So this thread is an effort to explore suggestions and ideas on how to properly regulate capitalism to do just that.

I generally believe that complete unregulated capitalism in any society is a poor idea because extremism in any form is cause for concern. I would say that because the number one goal of every single business is to turn a profit, and because history has shown that businesses are really willing to do anything to do so, that it would be a good idea to not regulate capitalism but regulate how businesses and capitalism effects our world. Imposing regulations on a given society, especially in the united states, in terms of the environent, is a sensible idea and can serve as a good compromise should it be the only thing to be regulated.

Just a thought, thanks.

 

[Waddy]

The first thing I'd do is bring back Glass-Stegal. Separate commercial and investment banking. Then prohibit bankers from working for the SEC or the White House. Then break up the biggest banks into smaller banks. Then prohibit subprime mortgages. Then require that any future bail out money be directed to home owners and not banks. Set lower interest rates on Payday loans, but do not ban them; they have their uses. Finally, require that any new government expenditure be paid for with a tax increase.

Allow school choice. Parents should have the freedom to choose where their child attends school. The money should follow the student, just like it does in every form of post-high school education. Eliminate tenure for teachers. Allow students to fast track if they can do the work. Offer a "basic" diploma for students who need to quit school at age 16 and go to work. Lower the work age everywhere except dangerous jobs to age 16.

I got more; just ask.

 

[jaeger19]

The first thing I'd do is bring back Glass-Stegal

Yep

Then break up the biggest banks into smaller banks.

Will end up costing the consumer more..and not really do anything.

Then require that any future bail out money be directed to home owners and not banks.

Which would increase the behavior.. since the home owners were a big part of the problem. If home owners weren't willing to take these loans they could not afford.. then there would have been no crisis. Many of them lied simply to get into the house.. with the idea that they could refinance later.

Set lower interest rates on Payday loans, but do not ban them; they have their uses. F

Yep.

inally, require that any new government expenditure be paid for with a tax increase.

Not a bad idea...

llow school choice. Parents should have the freedom to choose where their child attends school. The money should follow the student, just like it does in every form of post-high school education.

Have to be careful here. First.. if you are hopping schools.. the money should follow if its public to public school... If its public to private.. then the money should not follow because the wealthiest will drain off the best kids into private school.. where they get the money from the public system.. and the private pay for the private school. Thus leaving the poorer students to wallow in inadequately funded schools.

Eliminate tenure for teachers.

Bad idea.. it will.. 1. Cause teacher salaries to go through the roof as teachers hop from school to school to whomever pays the most. Tenure was put in place as a way to attract teachers without having to pay as much. It was a reward for being loyal to the school and not hopping from school to school to whomever was the highest bidder. Schools could attract good teachers to them with lower salaries.. but the promise of protection/security if they made it to tenure.


Also..you are going to see the quality of education drop as teachers are more concerned with keeping the students and their parents happy.. and keeping their jobs.. then they are of demanding that the students meet an acceptable standard..

A

llow students to fast track if they can do the work.

Bad idea. That's a problem now... we need to change the fundamentals of what you do with advanced students. Advanced students like my children should not be fast tracked.. so that they simply get done faster... they should have their standards expanded to take advantage of their ability to learn more and faster.


So the basic kids.. learn say biology 101 and spend the year learning the basic curriculum.


The moderate kids.. learn that biology but also are required to do some lab assignments etc..


And the advanced kids actually learn to do research,, write it up and do a presentation.

Offer a "basic" diploma for students who need to quit school at age 16 and go to work

Been done.. terrible idea as the jobs for such students has been drying up for decades.

 

[TheEconomist]

The point was a challenge to find a job that actually pays whatever your skills are worth in the market. Of course, I'm assuming you have skills...

It is always possible that the complaints of many stems from their ego and not the labor market. You might think you're worth something, but if no one is willing to pay you as much as you think your skills are worth, it is some kind of indication you might be mistaken.

But, in all seriousness, we have far too many employers whining that they "can't fill jobs" when what they actually mean is "we can't fill jobs at half the market rate."

They can complain if they want, just as you can complain, but I doubt that trying to psychoanalyze a multitude of people and assign to them ill motives is useful in any way. For one thing, they might not be thinking that and, even if they did, you seem very quick to presume things will move from intentions to outcomes. The reality of things is that if you give good workers less than others are willing to pay for them, you might get your hands on a few temporarily, but you'll eventually lose them. The idea that intentions might matter less than you think in systemic processes such as markets was a rare point of agreement among thinkers such as Marx and Smith.

 

[DifferentDrummr]

It is always possible that the complaints of many stems from their ego and not the labor market. You might think you're worth something, but if no one is willing to pay you as much as you think your skills are worth, it is some kind of indication you might be mistaken.

That's why we now have reputable research firms providing market rates for all types of jobs in most regions. Both employers and workers should be keeping up with this data to avoid the scenario you posit.

They can complain if they want, just as you can complain, but I doubt that trying to psychoanalyze a multitude of people and assign to them ill motives is useful in any way. For one thing, they might not be thinking that and, even if they did, you seem very quick to presume things will move from intentions to outcomes. The reality of things is that if you give good workers less than others are willing to pay for them, you might get your hands on a few temporarily, but you'll eventually lose them. The idea that intentions might matter less than you think in systemic processes such as markets was a rare point of agreement among thinkers such as Marx and Smith.

However, if governments can be "persuaded," the labor market can be rigged in one direction or the other. Surely Marx and Smith would have agreed on that as well.

 

[TheEconomist]

That's why we now have reputable research firms providing market rates for all types of jobs in most regions. Both employers and workers should be keeping up with this data to avoid the scenario you posit.

Appraisal values are not market values and, no matter how well they try to give you an idea of how prices vary across occupations and space, those firms will always work on less context-specific information than a specific employer or a specific employee possess. Moreover, you misunderstood the point I made. Your labor doesn't really have an objective value an external observer can attest and use a reference to impose on others. The value of your labor is whatever others who wish to acquire your labor would be disposed to sacrifice in order to benefit from your services. You might point out that some of what you produce can be measured in dollar amounts, but your services come with more than just the capacity to take care of some tasks.

How much is it worth if an employee is more reliable? How much is it worth if he learns faster? How much is it worth if he is more responsible, autonomous, polite, thoughtful, creative? The way we measure these things in economics is simple: look at the option cost people actually pay to get these things. On a similar order of thought, why would you use the judgment of a third party who has no stake in making an accurate assessment and higher cost to acquiring and processing information the ground for second-guessing the judgment of employers and employees?

However, if governments can be "persuaded," the labor market can be rigged in one direction or the other. Surely Marx and Smith would have agreed on that as well.

I don't know about Smith or Marx, but usually persuading the government is done when the benefits of the persuasion are concentrated and the costs diffuse. This is the case for unions, licensing boards and an entire host of established businesses, all of which have in common the desire to make an entry in their market prohibitively costly and difficult. It even has a name in economics: it's called rent seeking.

 

[wellwisher]

The purpose of the free market is to grow the economy and thereby create new wealth. This is reflected in the growth of the GNP. Free enterprise is how nature work. You plant a single potato and you harvest a dozen potatoes. This is nature way of creating new wealth in terms of more potatoes.

The government, on the other hand never turns a profit, It tends to run deficits and therefore has no clue how to create wealth. Government is like a city boy, who saw a farm in magazine and decides to become a potato farmer. At harvest time, he has to go the store to buy potatoes; deficit spending. Who would use such a moron system, in terms of oversight? Would the city boy turned farmer be useful to the other farmers, or would his control, screw up all the local farms? Incompetence should never lead competence.

If government could demonstrate that it knew how to make the economy grow; multiply potatoes, I would accept its involvement. Say Government could turn a profit and it could give all tax payers a yearly dividend; tax rebate, then I would agree government could help out in a big way. But as long it it makes negative wealth deficits, it would be a cancer to the economy. Cancer also employed deficit spending for the body as it eats away and makes one weaker.

One current example of a hopeful Government result, was the growth of the GNP in the first quarter of 2019. This was higher than expected. This was due to the trade policies of the Trump administration. The extra gains were due to more exports as a result of Government redoing the policies. This is an example of the government helping to turn a national profit; it helped to grow more potatoes.

The compromise is allow government involvement, only in areas were it is not a deficit cancer. These aspects need to stay as far away as possible. Trump did quarantine up some of this black thumb cancer affect, called regulatory overreach.

 

[DifferentDrummr]

Appraisal values are not market values and, no matter how well they try to give you an idea of how prices vary across occupations and space, those firms will always work on less context-specific information than a specific employer or a specific employee possess. Moreover, you misunderstood the point I made. Your labor doesn't really have an objective value an external observer can attest and use a reference to impose on others. The value of your labor is whatever others who wish to acquire your labor would be disposed to sacrifice in order to benefit from your services. You might point out that some of what you produce can be measured in dollar amounts, but your services come with more than just the capacity to take care of some tasks.

How much is it worth if an employee is more reliable? How much is it worth if he learns faster? How much is it worth if he is more responsible, autonomous, polite, thoughtful, creative? The way we measure these things in economics is simple: look at the option cost people actually pay to get these things. On a similar order of thought, why would you use the judgment of a third party who has no stake in making an accurate assessment and higher cost to acquiring and processing information the ground for second-guessing the judgment of employers and employees?

I'm puzzled at how you can conclude that the third party has no stake in making accurate assessments. Its own business depends completely on the extent to which clients and the public trust and rely on its information.

Granted, there's a strong element of interpersonal chemistry to the hiring process, but I suspect it doesn't have much impact on an employee's objective value (financially, that is).

 

[Fenton]

We have FIRE regulations for a reason, yes?
Fire can be a useful tool, because it can warm your home, forge your steel and iron, cook your food, etc.
It can also burn down entire towns if left unchecked.

Capitalism is a lot like FIRE. Left unregulated and unchecked, it can become predatory and very damaging, and it can unearth some pretty awful unintended consequences. And yet when properly harnessed, capitalism can lift entire generations out of poverty, stimulate innovation and launch entirely new industries. Capitalism has demonstrated the capability to serve as a useful and rewarding tool to serve the middle class if it operates under the right kind of regulation.

So this thread is an effort to explore suggestions and ideas on how to properly regulate capitalism to do just that.

You mean how should properly add to the myriad of existing regulations we already have ? And don't we extinguish fires ? Not regulate them ?

If the argument were being made in good faith by the Left, then it might be worth having. They seem to believe that the purpose of any good regulation is to suppress economic activity, to drive up the cost of goods and services for consumers, and to grant the Federal Govt new power and authority

Obama's clean power plan is a great example as is the push to convert our energy grid to 100% renewable. The plan was an attempt at a massive power grab by the Federal Govt granting and granted the EPA new powers and authority over individual States.

Thankfully, States like Texas challenged the EPA and the Obama administration in court which led to the Supreme Court issuing a stay which blocked Obama's Clean power plan

Its not the 1890's where a hand full of industrialists reign over vast monopolies and hoard vast amounts of wealth, and I noticed you didn't offer up any examples of these proper regulations