No saying something is "harmful" simply means that it has an attenuative effect on whatever is being harmed.
AND it means that the attenuation is bad - a value judgement.
Democracy is harmed, ie adversely impacted, by large concentrations of wealth. We see that from history and from pragmatic reasoning.
Which history and whose reasoning?
As for econometric efficiency, its legitimate to ask that question - but traditionally it is ROI - Return On Investment or Return on Capital. IE Growth rate increase. Simple measure.
Well, it's simple, but it may not be a good measure. As I said, it depends on your value -- for example, I think the way you're analyzing things, the ROI includes "investing" in social welfare, which means we're not using the same meaning of "investment." When the government spends money, that isn't investment -- it doesn't buy stocks that may increase in value.
You've never been an uneuqivocal advocate of property rights. You only have advocated the protection of the property rights OF THE WEALTHY and the violent.
No, I believe in protecting individual's property rights. Some individuals are wealth. Some are violent. Most are neither.
Degs -- you favor a policy of higher taxation on the rich and more social programs and entitlements for the poor, continued affirmative action into the indefinite future; stronger gun controls; stronger regulation of financial markets, and stronger environmental regulation --Because THE DATA LEADS US THERE.
No, Degs -- one view of the data leads us there. There are numerous other ways to evaluate the data on these issues. But the bottom line is, I would NOT KNOW this about your beliefs if you had not made policy statements that you say you've avoided.
Yes it is one of the things they rather quickly discovered did not work well. BTW deadlocks in State leges were themselves an inhibition to democracy since it meant that a state would lack an appointee to represent them.
Degs, make up your mind. Under your original statement, having a senator that wasn't popularly elected was a detriment to democracy. Now you're saying NOT having such a senator is a detriment to Democracy.
So when the farm gets sold, the heirs get none of the money... RIGHHTTT.. sorry no. It does not work that way. The wealth does not go away. What happens is that the assets get reallocated into more efficent economic uses.
They get some of the money, but they lose the creator of wealth -- the business or the farm. At best, the end up employees. The wealth does go away, and the assets that are "reallocated" (stolen) aren't reallocated more efficiently, they're simply destroyed as the farm or business ceases to exist.
Since there is no such thing as a "death tax" I don't know what you are talking about.
Oh, excuse me for calling a tax that you only pay when you die something other than an income tax.
Actually passing things onto your family is counterproductive to the individual. It may have EMOTIONAL appeal, but from a rational asset allocation perspective its a dumb strategy.
It's the primary reason people have ever developed wealth, Degs.
Well actually the floating of the dollar improved the growth rate (hint inflation does that).
Tell that to anyone who lived through Germany in the 1920s.11
Nope... MARGINAL tax rates are different than the fully weighted tax rate. Try again. Less emotionally more rationally.
I won't discuss marginal tax rates. If the bracket is 50 percent or 90 percent or 30 percent, even if that rate applies only to the last 25 cents earned, and the rest is taxed marginally at the next lower bracket, you still want a rate at which some of the income earned is taxed for more than half its value. That should never, ever, happen. The government is not entitled to 70 percent of 10 percent of my earnings, any more than it would be entitled to 70 percent of the entirety.
Wrong, and you can add Facebook to that list as well, though arguably the parents who's credit cards FB was launched on were actually the exception and wealthy.
It was launched on credit cards -- it didn't become "Facebook" until they got a check for half a mill from a venture capitalist.
But Apple was funded by Steve Jobs' parents. Netscape on the credit cards of a middle class cofounder Andreeson, Microsoft took money from BillG's parents who were wealthy but also from Ballmer's and Allen's who were solidly middle class.
As I said, they started that way, got a product up to a given level, and got venture capital -- and without the large amounts of venture capital they attracted at that point Microsoft would be as well known today as Visicalc.
FACTS Trap FACTS. VCs don't change their investment choices based on marginal tax rates. They just dont. Having a sister and BiL who were both in the biz, and having sat on the other side of that table I can tell you that they don't. You really don't know what you are talking about here.
No, they don't change their investment choices based on marginal tax rates, because investments don't get taxed that way. The marginal tax rate wasn't under discussion in regard to venture capital -- the fact that rich people have money they can put into venture capital and poor and middle-income people do not was the topic. But you think the accumulation of wealth is wrong, and should be stopped by increasing the inheritance tax. Where would the next venture capital come from if that happened?
Um you've not demonstrated that
1) it is "bullshit" as you claim - you've offered no counterfacts
2) No one is "penalized". Marginal tax rates that level the Marginal Utility of Income impact are not "penalties" its simply a level playing field
3) The "individual" is very much in my consideration. OUTLIERS and SINGLETON CASES are not - not from a POLICY perspectiv
e.
I haven't demonstrated that the sky appears blue to most human viewers, either, but that doesn't make it less factual. Are you saying that Soros and the Koch brothers share common views of the role of government?
As for "penalized" -- yes, we penalize people for their success. Taxation does that -- and it's a matter of high bad the penalty is before people start taking steps to leave the country or cheat on their taxes. If you think taxation is NOT a disincentive, then you stand in stark contrast to the people who increased taxes on tobacco, so fewer people would smoke, increased taxes on alcohol, so fewer people would drink, and increased taxes on gasoline in the hope people would use less of it. If "success" is a commodity, do we really want less of it?