[serious] Why is the UK so amazing?

[Tupac Shakur]

I can agree with DD that medicare is an effective wealth transfer as part of the welfare state

Yes. Medicare effectively transfers wealth from the poor to the wealthy.

[Dinner]

Well, from the not old to the old anyway. Income wise it's hard to see most 65 year old retirees as having an income worth being called wealthy; sure, they have a paid off house and a few other assets but their income likely sucks on average.

[Tupac Shakur]

Go learn what the word "wealth" means and then get back to us.

[Dinner]

I'm disputing your retarded claim that a 70 year old couple living in a 40 year old house with few, if any, other assets is "wealthy". Sure, they have a paid off house and likely a paid off car but not much else so, no, they're not wealthy even if you want to pretend they are.

[notyoueither]

Really? I thought Canada would be more secular, people in the US are definitely much more religious than people in the UK.

I can't speak to the numbers, but I can say that religion is held much more privately in Canada.

People who go around blabbing about God in the public square tend to be shunned.

In that sense, Canada is more secular even if numbers of religious people could be similar.

[rah]

I'm surprised that the full cap is so low. They should just raise it more than they have. They can keep the current level for employer matching so it doesn't discourage hiring.

[KrazyHorse]

Some of the most prosperous periods in US history (1950s and 1960s) have come during periods of super-high marginal income tax rates. And some of the most disastrous periods in US history (1930s, 2010s) have come after periods of super-low income tax rates.
In the good periods, moreover, the middle-class boomed and inequality between the country's highest earners and everyone else shrank. In the bad periods, meanwhile, inequality soared, and the richest 1% of the population came to earn a staggering amount of the country's income. (In the past, this inequality was addressed by a massive hiking of tax rates, which we imagine will eventually happen this time, too. See "DEAR RICH FOLKS: A (Tax) Revolution Is Coming To Take Your Money Away.")


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/do-lo...#ixzz1SkhB948S

JM

Do you ever get tired of posting facile nonsense like this?

[KrazyHorse]

Because they have set up the system so that the poor can not survive without welfare (and the wealth that would otherwise go to others goes to the wealthy instead), and lowered the taxes of the wealthy so that the wealthy do not pay for it.

JM

Yet another brilliant jon miller post.

[MOBIUS]

Actually, reducing the gap between rich and poor benefits the rich as well. There's an interesting book called 'The Spirit Level' by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett that explains the reasons why. I went to see a seminar about it with Traianus when I was in Brussels this year.

It's all common sense when you think about it, but then too many people in the world are literally too selfish for their own good.

[Jon Miller]

Do you ever get tired of posting facile nonsense like this?

I understand the theories you believe in, but they seem to be lacking empirical evidence.

Until I see that there is empirical evidence favoring them, I will continue to consider other theories.

All the data I read about, points to increased taxes (from the current point) on the wealthy as improving the US economy. The only ones who are against it are theorists who favor a (very logical) model but one which is lacking supporting data.

JM

[OneFootInTheGrave]

The UK is so amazing because

#1 - they have invented football and tennis
#2 - they have the best football league on the planet
#3 - BBC

Otherwise I cannot think of anything else that is actually better in UK than elsewhere... the rest is average or below average, but you can still make a living... if you work really hard and get the education (the last being harder now than what it used to be due to extra debt burden)

[KrazyHorse]

I understand the theories you believe in, but they seem to be lacking empirical evidence.

That people respond to incentives lacks empirical evidence? Go stick your head back in the ground, you mushy-brained twit. Also, if you're going to make claims about empirical evidence lacking you might as well bother to do a quick literature search. This is a well-studied topic:

http://www.oecd.org/LongAbstract/0,3425,en_2649_34325_41487020_119684_1_1_1,00.html
http://www.ecb.int/events/pdf/conferences/ws_pubfinance/paper_Furceri.pdf?0876d92684100e04d17a3bab79698cbd

Or see the famous example of the dramatic relative change in US versus European work efforts after a divergence in the marginal tax rates between the two countries.

All the data I read about, points to increased taxes (from the current point) on the wealthy as improving the US economy. The only ones who are against it are theorists who favor a (very logical) model but one which is lacking supporting data.

What data would that be? A childish analysis consisting of "taxes were high in the 50s and things were good then"?

[KrazyHorse]

Deadweight losses from each marginal tax dollar collected in income taxes are estimated to be 3-4 dollars under most studies I've seen, BTW.

I'm more than willing to pay some price in efficiency for the benefit of providing the very poor with a better standard of living, but being an ostrich and claiming that higher taxes make a society wealthier is simply idiotic.

[giblets]

What does "each marginal dollar collected in income taxes" mean?

[Dinner]

I'm a firm believer in incentivizing certain behaviors and disincentivizing others in order to achieve a societal goal. Higher taxes are certainly one way to disincentivize a behavior.

For example: A while back Rah mentioned how high corporate taxes in the 1930's to 1970's discouraged owners from taking profits out as personal income and instead reinvesting them in the company since that avoided getting nailed by the tax man. The end result was increased employment as expanding the business, even into marginal markets, was seen as a better option than letting Uncle Sam have it all. Now, you can rightly say such a tax structure encourages over reinvestment even when capital might be put to better use else where (or at least could get a higher ROI else where) but that's the difference between attempting to maximize employment growth vs attempting to maximize capital growth.