geojanes wrote:Now if you're serious about data:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/08intop400.pdf

Table 3 (on page 12): 243 of the richest 400 Americans paid an effective tax rate of less than 20% in 2008.

geojanes wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:One mitigating point to keep in mind is that qualified dividends (and some non-qualified ones) are already taxed at the corporate rate of 34%. Cap gains works differently, but to the extent that dividend earners are paying a lower rate (15% vs. 35%) it is fully explained by the fact that money has already been taxed once.

Yeah, double taxation is a better argument when more corporations actually pay corporate taxes. As you know, many are able to show corporate profits, pay dividends, and pay little in the way of corporate income taxes. But some pay that full rate, others don't. The effective tax rate at the corporate level, I expect, has an even higher standard deviation than the highest personal income earners.

geojanes wrote:Now if you're serious about data:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/08intop400.pdf

Table 3 (on page 12): 243 of the richest 400 Americans paid an effective tax rate of less than 20% in 2008. Sure some paid over 30%, but most didn't. I know I paid 26.7% in 2008, and I'm guessing if you had a job in 2008, you, and Randy, and just about every employed person here with an above average income paid more than 20%. And that's not right. Working people--and I mean that literally: people with earned income as a majority of their total income--should not pay more of their income in taxes than most of the very rich.

Archduke Russell John wrote:]Now George, this just seems to be cherry picking data. I mean it really seems has if Monte has pretty much answered all of your concerns with data that shows your concerns (and Buffets) claim are basically incorrect. And your response is 243 people paid taxes that you think were not enough?

Ruffhaus8 wrote:Brad continues to try to make people answer the question of just how much of our money should we be allowed to keep, which is where the debate of taxes and deficit reduction needs to begin.

But boosting aggregate demand did not end the Great Depression. After the initial stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent economic plunge, a recovery began in the summer of 1932, well before the New Deal. The Federal Reserve Board's Index of Industrial production rose nearly 50% between the Depression's trough of July 1932 and June 1933. This was a period of significant deflation. Inflation began after June 1933, following the demise of the gold standard. Despite higher aggregate demand, industrial production was roughly flat over the following year.

The growth that followed the low point of the Depression was primarily due to productivity. Productivity is considered a supply-side factor by many economists: It is determined by the technology and regulatory structure of the economy and therefore is largely independent of spending policies.

The growth rate of real per capita output is the sum of the growth rate of per capita labor input and productivity growth. Increasing aggregate demand is supposed to increase output growth by increasing labor input. But between 1932 and 1934, the period that Mr. Bernanke cited in his speech, per capita real gross domestic product (GDP) growth was entirely due to productivity growth, as per capita total hours worked—a standard measure of labor input—was actually, according to our research, lower in 1934 than it was in 1932.

Ray Jay wrote:My own sense is that the left has one note to play, and unfortunately it is a false note.

danivon wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:My own sense is that the left has one note to play, and unfortunately it is a false note.

Stay classy!

When you look at what the recent proposals from the President include, it's not just about taxing the rich, is it? It's just that that part is the one that generates the most howling and wailing, and thus gets noticed, and the narrative created by the media (hardly the poorest people on the planet, media outlet owners) can skew perceptions

Ray Jay wrote:It's a bold idea ... I don't see either political party supporting it. Let's put it on the shelf next to my legalize marijuana to improve productivity concept

As an eminently reasonable and intelligent Democrat,

do you see my point that Obama is devoid of ideas to improve the economy. He's proposed Keynesian stimulus, and not much else. I don't think stimulus will work; other do; but in the end, it won't pass in any material way, so where's his Plan B? Doesn't he owe us that as our President? Is stimulus the only thing in his tool box?

geojanes wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:It's a bold idea ... I don't see either political party supporting it. Let's put it on the shelf next to my legalize marijuana to improve productivity concept

Yeah, it'll never happen. NFP orgs are our last sacred cow. Not only do we subsidize them in whole hosts of ways, we actually reach into our own wallets and give them more at the end of the year, voluntarily. Usually to an organization with people who make many times what we do. It's kinda nuts, but people are nuts when it comes to their sacred cows.

As an eminently reasonable and intelligent Democrat,

Hold on there, I've never voted in a democratic primary and have never been so registered. Also, I notice that you consider me eminently reasonable, not eminently intelligent. So many problems with this clause . . .

do you see my point that Obama is devoid of ideas to improve the economy. He's proposed Keynesian stimulus, and not much else. I don't think stimulus will work; other do; but in the end, it won't pass in any material way, so where's his Plan B? Doesn't he owe us that as our President? Is stimulus the only thing in his tool box?

Yeah, I don't know if stimulus will work. I know Krugman is big on it, and that it should be bigger and more sustained, essentially telling the world that if the gov't is going to throw money into the economy until it gets better, it'll get better faster, because what else are you going to do? Fight the govt? I don't know if there is a Plan B, if so, it hasn't really been promoted, by anyone, has it?

Some of the more ancillary Obama ideas, like reducing foreign energy dependence and increasing manufacturing exports, are two really good long-term things which will reduce the current account balance, which is essential to long-term economic sustainability. Short-term, they won't do too much, though. Some of the ideas in this thread are OK, but fall into the "small" category. The asset sales will get excess property back on the tax rolls and productive again. Ending ethanol and many other subsidies would be great. Trade agreements are usually a good thing, but doing away with Sarbanes Oxley? Hello? Anyone remember Enron? Sure let's increase certainty by requiring less certainty from the financial statements of our publicly traded corporations. That one is being promoted by the fox to the chickens. But unless I'm missing something, none of suggestions here are to the scale that would make an immediate, measurable short-term economic improvements.

In short, the gov't controls the money supply, and is the consumer of last resort [or uses the tax-payers as proxy through tax cuts]. Those are big things, but beyond those, what else can it do to make a really big impact on the short-term economy?

Ray Jay wrote:It's a bold idea ... I don't see either political party supporting it. Let's put it on the shelf next to my legalize marijuana to improve productivity concept

As an eminently reasonable and intelligent Democrat,

do you see my point that Obama is devoid of ideas to improve the economy. He's proposed Keynesian stimulus, and not much else. I don't think stimulus will work; other do; but in the end, it won't pass in any material way, so where's his Plan B? Doesn't he owe us that as our President? Is stimulus the only thing in his tool box?