Comments on: Income inequality: government, Warren Buffett and growth

By: farrago

farrago — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:48:31 +0000

Incomes became endangered when profits switched to transactions from commodities and actual services. Or when “money,” those pieces of paper with pictures, became more valuable than goods or resources.

Of course, it is a fallacy that we can have “continued growth” without rushing toward catastrophe. How much more profit can come out of transactions before there is nothing left?

Maybe a change back to being customers rather than consumers would help. One has choices as a customer.

By: steelworker

steelworker — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 04:00:21 +0000

The people at the top have been squeezing the workers at the lower levels for three decades. How do you think they got rich?

By: keebo

keebo — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:21:11 +0000

Eliminate the income tax and instead tax consumption. Who will pay more in taxes, the guy with the economy car or the one with the personal jet. The guy with the jet of course – unless loopholes created by corrupt politicians says otherwise.

By: rikfre

rikfre — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 18:15:26 +0000

is that the medal you get for donating dollars to the president?

By: OneOfTheSheep

OneOfTheSheep — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 06:28:57 +0000

@AdamSmith,

Guess you didn’t get the memo. Occupy Wall Street failed. You guys either took your tent home or watched it get trashed. Good riddance.

See how long you remain “free” on the street if you ever try to use one of your wet matches on any American citizen’s legal home. You can’t do what you preach and remain anonymous, and so you seek to incite others to do your dirty work while you remain safely in the shadows scurrying around with other unseen vermin. Bah!

The average American prefers to be on the road, online and in the malls spending. There’s a lot going on when you get your head out of the sand and look around. You don’t seem to “get” that your “revolting” ideas and attitudes are fundamentally anti-American?

By: AdamSmith

AdamSmith — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 21:16:55 +0000

One of the greatest property rights enjoyed by wealthy is that of not having their mansions burned down tonight.

It seems to me that if the lives and careers of the American middle class continue to be destroyed by the outsourcing their jobs and unrelenting lowering their wage rates, this important benefit may no longer be available to the wealthy.

By: Sanity-Monger

Sanity-Monger — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 20:47:22 +0000

“the state can choose to mute the impact of the invisible hand” — what evidence is there that it has been market forces that have driven the rising inequality? It was not market forces that have slashed upper income tax brackets and capital gains rates. And market forces seems a poor explanation for the shift of corporate income from workers to executives, usually regardless of performance. Yes, it does seem likely that foreign competition had an impact on low-skill factory jobs, but that doesn’t explain the stagnant wages in fields where qualified labor is purportedly in short supply (engineering, accounting). No, in those cases it was in fact the actions of the state that caused wages to stagnate and in some cases decline.

I think it’s important to make clear that addressing income inequality is not about mucking with the revered invisible hand. The mucking has been underway since before capitalism was even around.

By: nkirv

nkirv — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 18:13:31 +0000

The rich have been getting richer, but have they been creating more jobs with their extra wealth? Obviously not. They are sticking their money in off-shore accounts.

Ergo: Tax breaks for the rich does not translate into investment in jobs. It does the opposite: it causes boom-and-bust cycles and loss of jobs.

By: drjdsjr

drjdsjr — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:29:14 +0000

Theft is never a “win-win”, anymore than a stage magician’s illusory creations of things from nowhere are anything other than a classy trick. A pig in a dress is still a pig.

By: Bob9999

Bob9999 — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:10:21 +0000

“A second theme of the Brookings discussion helps to explain one reason that has happened: The economy has gone global, but nation-states have not.”

Isn’t it really a matter of arbitrage and the behavior of markets?

Just as globalism means the actual or potential shifting of production to areas with lower labor prices, doesn’t globalism also mean the actual or potential shifting of profits to jurisdictions (tax markets) with lower taxes (i.e., lower prices on a set of government services which one is required to purchase)?

And just as it is natural for the availability of low labor prices in one area to constrain labor prices in another area, isn’t it natural for low taxes in one area to constrain taxes in another area as well?