Ready for a laugh?...Here comes "Liberal" talk radio!!! - Page 5 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

#61 07-21-2003, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Botnst
That's my hope for wealth redistribution--a form of natural selection. It would work much better if the heirs were given a lump-sum, tax free. Let them figure out what to do with their lives and a pile of cash. I'll bet most of the population, so endowed, would blow it over the course of their lifetimes. I just don't have a lot of faith in .gov rules. Experience and reason suggest that life is more interesting and full without some dang nanny-gov watching our every move.

Unfortunately, the parental unit usually hires smarter people than their offspring to devise clever strategies inhibiting wholesale squandering of the legacy. Daddy's dead hand from the grave, protecting sonny. Sonny never has to grow-up and the wealth sits their in some trust account, effervescing cash to a drone.

Botnst

Speaking of trusts, this is exactly what my brothers and I are trying to get my Father to transfer his estate to when the time comes. Trusts are also sheltered from estate taxes, and will allow for us to keep his assets working then as they do now, and keep the government from extorting the money from us.

jjl · #62 07-22-2003, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Botnst

Wealth is accumulating to the upper brackets at the expense of the lower brackets. Now if you look at Table 1 of the pdf I ref'd, you'll see that the bottom 5% decreased in the wealth held at the bottom? What does that mean?

Well, if (say) immigrants enter this country annually in the hundreds of thousands, most of them are probably dirt poor. Also, when we're younger and stupid(er) we tend to be poor(er) than when we get to be middle-aged fatcat capitalists. The bottom end tends to stay at subsistence level, though people, especially immigrants (in the USA) tend to transition through the lower tier rather quickly and tend to accumulate in the middle two tiers later in life. If we take a snapshot of the USA and then look at the diff between years, it looks like the poor are getting shafted while the rich steal food from their mouths. But America is anything but socioeconomically static. People rarely stay within a stratum for long and most everybody clambers for more. The bottom will always be subsistence (a constant)--never has been a change in what it takes to subsist. But as folks move out of that zone, they settle into a tier defined by their drive, ability and luck.

This is a good hypothesis (immigration decreasing low-end wealth), but I guess I'd like to subject it to some data. My first knee-jerk reaction is that it would need A LOT of immigrants to reduce the wealth of the lowest 20% by such a large margin (going from say 4.0% to 3.5% is a 1/8th decrease in wealth of the poorest 20% of Americans). This would be equivalent (would it not - check my figures!) of 1/8th of this 20% of the population arriving with no wealth at all. This seems unlikely, but I could easily be wrong.

It would be really intestesting to find data on how dynamic these income classes are. Do people really move freely - or is it difficult to become poor once you are very rich? I think you would have to be spectacularly stupid to lose 100 million dollars. The low end is likely to be much more dynamic that the upper end, perhaps.

Quote:

Originally posted by Botnst

Now, that upper five percent. That's probably the zone where you and I agree more closely in our previous data interp. I believe, but cannot yet prove, that a large proportion of them are going to be the inheritence class. I think the large increase in that number is compounded--that is, it will be an exponential function. People of extraordinary ability, luck, and drive work their butts off to get there. That is probably a constant function or proportion of the population. Add to that group of achievers some proportion of their heirs who live off trusts. This is where the exponentiation comes in.

What say you to all that, uh, stuff?

Botnst

Yes, this is my hunch too. Botnst, I'd be interested to hear your view on a closely related (it may even be the same) issue, that of making money from money (i.e. usury). This is still a taboo in Islam, and was in Christianity (although they allowed Jews to perform this function). If I have a million dollars of excess wealth, I can easily 'make' another 50K in a year through a safe investment. But if I have a thousand dollars, I get fifty dollars (sorry if this is laboured). The point is, I haven't actually done anything for my extra cash. Does this fit with the meritocracy model - how is this conceptually different from inheritance?

Piotr · #63 07-22-2003, 11:32 PM

jjl/botnst, this is probably the most boring and flawed disussion yet, but let me ask you a question. If all your assumption are right, how do you explain that relatively large % of immigrants coming to this country w/o any means whatsoever (my family arrived with a $120 and 4 suitcases ) and with very little assitance from the government achieve so much??? (BTW, you still did not answer to my previous questions).
And, second, are you telling me that after I work my ass off to make life easier for my children (err.. child), and after paying taxes on my income, on my SS, now HE has to pay taxes on the same money already taxed by everybody at least once before?

Oh, right! if I'm correct, you want (after my death) to take MY money, EARNED by MY hard work from my epileptic child for whom I worked so hard for say, 20 years of my life, only because YOU and YOU alone believe somebody else, whom I do not know, do not owe anything, and who possibly did not contribute to the society diddly squat, deserves it more?? please explain it to me , because my poor, underdeveloped immigrant mind cannot grasp that, no doubt, higher form of liberal logic.

And finally, since both the state and the feds classified my son as a special needs child, I ALONE believe that any money YOU earn in the next 15 years (ok, maybe 50% of it) should go directly to my son, because he deserve them more than you.
Please, show me (using YOUR logic), where I'm wrong to demand it???? .

jjl · #64 07-23-2003, 06:22 AM

Piotr, if its such a boring and crappy discussion why get involved? Just ignore it. If it bores you go post elsewhere. I find much of what is said tedious and stupid, all of the time, but I don't have a go at people because of it - they have a right to be tedious and stupid.

As for the content, please don't take it personally. I read plenty of stuff here I find morally outrageous - we all will, if we have any thought-through political/economic/social opinions at all. Believe me, I am interested in fairness and a better world and all things sugar and spice, just trying to have a discussion and perhaps learn a few things...

Here's what I think about what you said, for what its worth.

You should pay your taxes once, at source = income tax, but then keep your money, and so should your son, untaxed, particularly given the circumstances. You shouldn't have to pay tax twice, UNLESS we are talking huge sums (millions). Because of the positive feedback involved in our economic system, my view is that inheritance tax is necessary, BUT it must be correctly applied. I think it is not good (for all of us) for individuals to accumulate billions, and it is even worse for such sums to be inherited. But I think it IS wrong that people of low and middle income are taxed on inheritance at all (I've experienced this). It just a matter of a fair system that rewards talent, initiative, hard work etc., but doesn't $crew the weak. I'd rather pay higher taxes to ensure that those who can't compete on the same level get some of my money, yes. But that's probably that dirty word, socialism. That's all.

I have no problem at all with immigrants 'making good' - good luck to them, I wish everyone could do it (there's the rub). So I don't understand you ire here - did I give some other impression? It wasn't meant. We have a lot of immigrants here in UK and they are not being made welcome (people say they just live of welfare), but I guess it is different in US?

regards

J

jjl · #65 07-23-2003, 07:03 AM

Botnst, I understand your argument about money, but perhaps the issue really IS that it has no intrinsic worth? At least if I'm a manufactururer and expand my wealth in corporeal goods by creating them anew, I have made something tangible of use to everyone, but if I play the stockmarket and turn 100m into 110m, what have I done? Perhaps to answer my own question, I have just participated in the optimisation process and been rewarded for it proportionally. But I don't agree with myself here.

I had no idea immigration to the US was so great - I guess I'm wrong about that one. Mea culpa.

Your are being naughty with your Modest Proposal - you know it is the POOR children who get roasted!

BTW, since you're a botanist (I'm a biologist, did a Ph.D. in evolutionary genetics a long time ago), do you think there is an analogy between the observation/theory that the rate of natural selection is proportional to the amount of genetic variation, and the claim that free market economies seem to NEED a large variation in income? Do some of us HAVE to be poor (or rich) otherwise things come apart?

J

jjl · #66 07-23-2003, 11:08 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Botnst
Worth of money? I'm confused where you're going with this.

Hey, that's OK, I'm confused myself about it. This is probably even more out of my depth, but it occurs to me that Bill Gates really doesn't have 43 billion dollars, because he can't *lose* it (well, he could put it on a horse...). If you can't spend it (turn it into something you can consume), perhaps it is not like the money we use. Just a thought.

Taxonomist, thick older brother of evolutionary genetics. Prior to that I worked in oil exploration and before that, US Navy. Worked in neotropical Araliaceae in grad school but spent most of my mercifully (for academia) brief professional botanical career at an arboretum. Now I make maps.

Interesting life. Mine is much duller. Industry (analytical chemistry)University (degrees), University (research), Research Institute (research). Now moved into ecology/biogeography, rather than genetics. Doing/done some forestry work - bit in Alaska. I thought Scotland was pretty until I saw *that* stuff!

Do you subscribe to ecolog-l? The discussion in your second paragraph quoted above rears its ugly head at least once each semster. There is a prof, Kiwi I think, who appears to have some pretty good insight into applying econometrics to ecosystems and vice versa. I do not attempt to keep up as they start talking about differentials and integrals and stuff and I reach a synaptic crisis. In other words, "Yeah, what he said."

jjl · #67 07-23-2003, 12:27 PM

Botnst,I meant to post this below the last quote in my last post:

Ecolog-l ? Thanks, I'll check it out. I have an interest in Genetic Algorithms for optimising tricky problems - it is amazing how well they work (I am applying them to biodiversity patterns). You can watch them zeroing in on a solution that you would never have found by eye, or even conventional mathematical methods. I've often wondered what the economic similarities are. As you know, Nature is pretty brutal so I'm not sure it should be our standard!

Piotr · #68 07-24-2003, 01:24 AM

jjl- why did you spoil such a great case of dislike I began to build for you? Now I simply feel guilty...

My point is, that there is no good way of deciding what is "too much money". It's completely subjective and it usually means more than amount of money associated with the individual making such judgement, regardles of THAT amount.

Now make me dislike you again. it felt right...

jjl · #69 07-24-2003, 05:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Piotr
jjl- why did you spoil such a great case of dislike I began to build for you? Now I simply feel guilty...

My point is, that there is no good way of deciding what is "too much money". It's completely subjective and it usually means more than amount of money associated with the individual making such judgement, regardles of THAT amount.

Now make me dislike you again. it felt right...

I'll try

- but you're right! I guess we do it democratically? Democracy is never perfect and does some really dumb things, but can't do the WORST things - all those sob dictatorships and totalitarian states.