Peter_Puget

Swiss Orange Chip

Hey Jim got the first review posted for this little book! Bush Boom PP

Do corp income taxes do this?

Many taxes will increase the price of goods but not all taxes doing so are a tax on consumption. Fairness is meaningless to me as an arguement. If you are going to use it I would ask that you comletely define fairness such that we can all agree on its measurement!

Jim Luna's point was more than that he/she attacked others as misrepresenting information. That while making that point he/she engaged in the same tactics he/she decried is amazing. PP

Luna just wrote another Finnagin’s Wake! Like that famous tome it says a lot but just what it means is hard to decipher but let’s try to figure it out. Although I usually do not think the “point by point” method is a proper response, since Luna’s post is so long I am going to respond in that manner. While PP's table is interesting, it is a cleverly simplistic tool used by the conservative right to show how burdened the upper income levels are taxed. So here's what I say. It's a complicated issue. Well we agree it’s a complicated issue but I must say that I have made no claims based on fairness or equity. In fact I believe that I have expressly rejected such claims. Luna’s mention of conservative right and use of terms clever simplistic are attacks not against any argument I have put forth or even directly against me but against an evil third party! Is he/she trying to use guilt by association? I think so, the silly devil! 1) One ploy often used to play down growing inequality is to rely on rather coarse statistical breakdowns - dividing the population in to quintiles. From there it's a short step to deny that we're really talking about the rich at all. PP's table comes from a Republican committee (aren't they all now) and bears a striking resemlence to info put out by the right-wing conservative Heritage Foundation. You can present data that show there has been some increase in the share of income (and tax burden) to the top 10% of taxpayers and then point out that anyone with income over $81K is in that top 10%, which is middle class - right? Luna never says the data is wrong but casts a shadow on it by saying the table comes from a “republican committee” and a similar one has been used by the “right wing heritage foundation”. Of course if the information is correct, all tables of a similar structure would be similar. Where does the structure come from? The IRS. (http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/pub/irs-soi/01in01ts.xls) Perhaps that is why this table was chosen. Note also that Luna claimed only that the table came from a republican committee but made no comment regarding the data! Was Luna trying to avoid admitting the data come from the IRS? I expressly showed the income levels for each grouping in my first post – nothing was hidden. The data I presented shows that the AGI floor for the top 10% is in fact $92,754 not the $81 income as presented by Luna. I’ll assume that Luna meant AGI when he/she used the term “income” if not his/her error is even greater. Wrong: the top 10% contains a lot of people whom we would still consider middle class, but they aren't the big winners in the last 30 years of tax reduction. Most of the gains in the share of the top 10% were actually gains in the top 1%. In 1998 the top 1% started at $230K. In turn, 60% of the gains of that top 1% went to the top 0.1%, those earning more than $790K. And almost half of those gains went to a mere 13,000 tax payers, the top 0.1%, who had an average income of $17 million. (Pikety-Saez research institute and non-partisan Congressional Budget Office data). In 1970 the top .01% of taxpayers had 0.7% of total income, that is they earned only 70 times that of the average. But in 1998 the top .01% received more than 3% of all income. The 13,000 richest families had almost as much income as the 20 million poorest. And the trend continues more so in the Bushie Admin, Hmmm, who needs tax relief? Wrong? What claim have I made that is wrong? What assertion? Earth to Luna: come in please! This is non-responsive to any argument I have made so I will let it pass with only a few small comments. Luna mentioned that people present data in a manner that best shows what they want to show. For example, see the argument presented above. Now Luna has done the same darn thing here! The scoundrel! Look he is using five year old data! Any reader interested in more recent data would find that the higher income levels have suffered disproportionately during the current downturn. Hmm maybe somewhere on this site PP has posted some data regarding this some time ago (hint: it was from the IRS!) Ok I’ll admit it I am pretty much bored with this. I believe my argument is clear to someone willing to put aside their rejoinder until they finish reading my posts. Suffice to say that Luna has missed it by a mile. Luna was getting close with the dividend tax change put missed the point my argument would suggest was important. Even worse Luna has resorted to the very tactics decried in his/her post. What gives? PP

One more thing: "Overall, these results indicate that upward mobility remains an attainable goal for the majority of working age individuals. The presence of mobility implies that yearly measures of earnings inequality likely overstate the permanent earnings differences between individuals." link: I posted this a few weeks back PP

Source for what? If you mean link to the table, I sure did - in my second post to this thread. How can you be so wrong so often? Here it is again: Table Link PP

Intern isn't an elected office

I'll take that position as well

me!

I know you fall off high enough to swing like mad but not hit the ground!

Killa Priest you fool!

Oh, but I disagree. You must look at this logically, and apply reason. How else can you analyze this? Use whatever word you want, 'fairness', 'equity', whatever. The bottom line point I was making is that simply because someone has created more wealth for himself than others, doesn't automatically mean that the government is entitled to more of it on a percentage basis. I agree with the last sentence! Back to economies in general. Ok let's say we have two countries and in each country we have a worker. Each worker makes $1/per year. In the first country economic growth is encouraged and consequently the worker there has a real income growth rate of 3.5%/annum in the other country the growth rate is 1% less per year. After 40 years the worker in the second country will be making only 67% of what the worker in the first makes. Small differentials in growth rates have huge impacts on real wealth over time! PP

Ok Here’s the scoop. My first link (which Jim read!) clearly stated that average EU productivity/hr was at one point up to 87% of the US. The more recent link breaks out productivity by country. Note: three countries have higher per hr productivity rates - France, Belgium and Netherlands. Belgium has a population of approximately 10 million. NYC has about 8million. Are comparisons of small countries such as Belgium and Netherlands to the entire US appropriate? Clearly not. France is better but still much smaller than the US. The current discussion regarding “fairness” is interesting but misses a major point. Would a tax scheme seen as “fair” by the vast majority of citizens be preferred over a grossly unfair tax scheme where everyone is materially better off? My links have real points to make regarding economic growth rates and flexibility. Important points not addressed by a discussion of fairness. Of course to be fair in a discussion of fairness you don’t need to rely on facts. PP

Fingers in the am and bigger muscles in the evening. Or work in a more general or lite workout in

Point one: Jim's claim that the link I posted doesn't address prod/hr is false. Point two: Jim is now changing his facts. See this for EU productivity per hour. You can come to your own conclusion on how misleading Jim’s claims are when they are true and how wrong they are when they are false. PP

My link expressly addresses productivity per hour . You originally claimed that some EU nations had productivity per hour higher than the US. Now you seem to be suggesting that the EU on average has a higher productivity per hour. Which is it? PP

Link Check this out: The Swiss economy has faced hard times in the past few years. One canton, Schaffhausen, is doing something about it by changing its tax law to attract wealthy people. Beginning in January 2004, Schaffhausen will replace its system of increasing marginal tax rates on income with a system of degressive marginal rates. The cantonal tax rate will be set at just under 8 percent for income of SFr 100,000. It will rise to a peak of 11.5 percent for income between SFr 600,000 and SFr 800,000. Thereafter, the marginal rate declines with each incremental chunk of income: 10 percent at SFr 1,300,000; 8 percent at SFr 3,000,000; and just over 6 percent for income more than SFr 10,000,000. This is a true incentive-based tax system: the larger one's income, the lower one's marginal rate Jim - Before you address this issue why don't you go back to the productivity thread and read the link I posted there. You might learn something if you free your mind from the constraints of your rigid worldview. PP

Adjusted gross income floors on top 1, 5, 10, 25, and 50% are as follows: $292,913 $127,904 $92,754 $56,085 $28,528. PP

EU Productivity

You guys are crazy skinny girls? Just say no. Nothing is groovier than a tummy to hold while you're spooning! Oh ya and bigs buts go better with big legs! PP

Dr. Squat! PP

WHat about the weight gain associated with C. It seems that a light guy such as yourself might not be as adversely impacted by this as a fat man like me. Any thoughts?

Katana!