Martin, the problem I have with those studies is how they define a conservative. As a person who took econometrics in college, I know how easily flawed that data is. For example, many people might think I'm conservative because I'm NOT liberal. But I'm no where near conservative but I would be defined that way in that study simply because I'm "against" the use of misallocation towards welfare. Those studies are rather useless and usually are generated to serve some political end. Logically we can deduce that "being" liberal is actually more optimal for most billionaires in terms of their own personal utility. Once you are rich, you want the government to protect you and you are indifferent if others can become rich themselves. It's only when you are in the middle class that you hope to have all the resources to become rich hence why there is such a strong lean in this country for the middle class towards the right. Usually the extreme ends of the spectrum are going to be center left as they should be, it's the most optimal strategy. But measuring who qualifies as a conservative or liberal in terms of studies is completely bogus. I would wager Martin that if you looked at the coefficients used in that study and looked at their p-values individually you would see all of them showing little to no statistical significance. I know because I actually have DONE those regression studies. As to making government better....LOL. Martin, I always applaud people with good intentions but talk about wasteful efforts. Don't try to make gov't better, just try to make the game more fair. Usually that means distributing power away from the gov't back to the people. But not through the means of the gov't. In other words, don't let the gov't allocate power back to the people by their own proxy. Because they will just give power to those that will hand it back to them and round and round we go.
In a perfect world, where death taxes are collectable, government would also be prudent, increase its efficiency and realize tax receipts at today's levels are enough to cover its spending, no? Does this apply to taxation in general or inheritance taxes in particular? If latter, I'd very much like to see that empirical evidence, given that I very much doubt inheritance taxes have been successfully collected anywhere. I don't get how inheritance taxes are going to solve any problems. Current inheritance tax receipts are < 4b GBP in the UK, not a dealbreaker. I suspect that the effective tax is far south of 40%, but let's do some math: HNWI wealth in the UK is around 2-3t. Let's say each year 5% die, and you collect the 40%, 40-60b pounds into the budget. Woo,if lucky that will cover deficit. This tax level causes a lot of grief on individual level, but it hardly matters on a big scale. Decreasing budget by 10% would have just the same impact. Realistically, if this tax was actively enforced, government would most likely squander the receipts, and with precedent in place it will not stop at 40%. Also, I have not located the original of the survey, but: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101634240
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiT30N6ti4 a level playing field is all you ask? an even chance? that will never happen. that's long gone. draw your line right now, and step above it
This isn't exactly pertinent but I'm reminded of the brief but intense reaction to the idea that "the people" foot the bill for the repairs to Windsor castle after the fire. When the degree of the Queen's wealth was publicized, the general attitude was fix it your own damn self. The Queen was wise to do so and avoid fracturing her relationship with her subjects.
I propose that we try to avoid the "conservative"/"liberal" labels, which the actual research also attempts to do (other than when asking about the party allegiance). You can look at the highlights of what the specific responses to specific questions asked were here: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2011/12/one-percent-lomax-cook.html and here: http://www.russellsage.org/blog/r-mascarenhas/wealthiest-1-percent-and-common-good. Regardless of the labels, what data we have available makes it reasonably clear that the rich are emphatically not "the very liberals that advocate for higher taxes" as you originally stated. This is the summary of the empirical findings: - More members of the one percent point to the federal budget deficit as the countryâs most pressing problem than to any other problem facing the nation. - Of those respondents who considered deficits the most pressing problem, 65% mentioned only cutting spending as the way forward, compared to 35% who favored both spending cuts and revenue increases. No one mentioned only increasing revenue. Most respondents also favored cutting back most federal government programs, including Social Security and health care. Erm, not really sure what you're talking about here. There are no regressions or statistical inferences in these studies, since their goal isn't to correlate attitudes with the position of the respondent on the "conservative/liberal" axis. I generally agree and it does sound good, but I don't really understand what it means. Who, other than the people, can distribute the power away from the gov't and back to themselves? If you have a democracy and your starting point is too much power residing with the govt, how can this power be allocated back to the people other than by electing a gov't that will actually do it?
europek... I am pretty sure you know this but I will present my take. Yes we could allow all banks to make many different competing moneies or as a Sovereign we could have our treasury work with our mint and create our own United States owned currency... but again that is not what we are doing. And, yes a sovereign's treasury can be used a many ways. But the point of the video is to show how our system is actually set up. 1. Privately owned bank by shareholders 2. money created out of thin air, at will, with the ability to go to zero reserve 3. the completely unnecessary income tax set up to support the private bankers 4. the complete lack of prudence is implicit. In fact the nefarious result of robbing the working class of their productivity is the result. Instead of over 700% inflation... given the massive worldwide demand for dollars our dollars should have become stronger. Had private bankers not reaped the rewards of printing trillions of dollars out of the ether... we might still be buying coffees for a nickel and cars for 5000 dollars... while our incomes increased. We will never know but the system as set up is designed to such the wealth out of the working class.
ok I took a shot at you old volume threads... which were not that bad... and you took a bullshit shot at me about youtube being my go to source... The real problem here... is when thinking people pretend its a conspiracy theory that the Federal Reserve system is owned by private individual shareholder and not the Federal Govt. Until you realize the Federal Reserve website itself admits that in the Q& A... and I printed that here on ET years ago... you are like a ML broker / mushroom... in the dark being fed a lot of shit by the politicians. Finally, I do not give a shit about "income inequality".. that what Obama the dems and the cronies are doing.. I prefer we all have and equal chance to accumulate capital and wealth.
Indeed... Pls note that, in spite of the various digressions, my point all along was that, fundamentally, the idea of death/inheritance tax increasing inequality doesn't make sense. I was referring to taxation in general, since that's what was brought up. Regarding inheritance taxes, it's rather ironic that some of the most liberal and socialist societies we have in the world today, Norway and Sweden, have both abolished inheritance tax relatively recently. I am not at all suggesting that inheritance taxes are going to solve anything. I just think that, in some "moral" way, not being able to pass your accumulated wealth to your descendants is "fair". How is this wealth actually best used and should the distribution of this wealth be made compulsory (i.e. a death tax)? I dunno... This is rather interesting... This suggests that the attitude towards raising taxes is very different between the top 8% and the top 1%.