Wealth inequality is the new normal

[TarJak]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-22/daley-were-on-the-cusp-of-a-second-gilded-age/5403744

I'm surprised Skybird hasn't posted about this yet. TBH the book mentioned in the story confirms a number of things that I think a lot of people have known for quite a while.

[BossMark]

Cant wait for STEEDS comment on this :haha:

[TarJak]

Victor will say he's happy of course. :har:

[AVGWarhawk]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-22/daley-were-on-the-cusp-of-a-second-gilded-age/5403744

I'm surprised Skybird hasn't posted about this yet. TBH the book mentioned in the story confirms a number of things that I think a lot of people have known for quite a while.

Nothing new specifically if some things have been known for quite a while.

[Skybird]

Difficult to judge that book and author by that article alone. I do not know man and book.

As I see it, yes, there are oligarchies of almost feudla nature forming up again, maybe they never really have been gone. On the other hand, our societies almost force everybody to live with his hands in other people's pockets, if you think of it long enough you see that it is very hard in ordinary life to avoid it even if you want to. But most want not anyway. The era since Roosevelt's New Deal maybe is best described as the era of redistribution, which really started rolling after WWII, all get robbed, and all take benefits in return, but it would be naive to seriously argue that those who act clever (meaning immoral here) do not become more successful in taking more than they give, than others. There is no honour amongst thieves, no matter what political parties try to tell you.

The paper money system and fractional reserve system feature inherent dynamics that further guarantee - unavoidably - that more wealth get shifted from the bottom and middle, to the top.

The left claims all this to be arguments against capitalism. That is a fallacy. What I summarised above, all is the distortion of a capitalistic system, made possible by blossoming monopolism. Criticism of monopolism I will always join. Monopolism is in politics and economics what blood and bone cancer is in medicine. You either kill it, or it kills you.

BTW, is there a word "monopolism", or is it always "monopoly"?

Another unsolved implicit problem is the accumulation of wealth by heredity (correct word?). While I oppose inheritance taxes, I do not claim to know a final solution to it. Maybe a culture that succeeds in anchoring certain ethical values in people, thus educating them to act morally, is an answer, but such policies has again risks in itself, as we can see in today's political correctness ideology and thjis unbearable attitude of the "Gutmenschen" that show tremendous signs of totalitarianism and fascism when wanting to impose their "wellmeaningness" on society and every individual.

But somehwere wise men like Ralph Waldo Emerson - just the first name on my mind in this moment - must have come form. Culture around can help or hinder to set ablaze a small spark in the soul - or kill it down, so that darkness falls. Education means more than just the transmission of facts and knowledge.

[TarJak]

Nothing new specifically if some things have been known for quite a while.
His point around the late 20th century redistribution of wealth is looking like an aberration rather than an ongoing trend is probably right. Though future history may prove him wrong.

I think that the only "new" thing in terms of wealth and income is the ability of an employee (read senior executives), to rise into the top 1%.

Previous eras only company owners tended to hold those roles so even there I don't think much has changed.

[Jimbuna]

Nothing new really...money looks after money and those that have it tend to hang onto it at any cost.

[Dread Knot]

His point around the late 20th century redistribution of wealth is looking like an aberration rather than an ongoing trend is probably right. Though future history may prove him wrong.


An aberration that may have been due to two large aberrations known as World War One and World War Two. I know here in the US a lot of people long for the good old days of the 1950s and early 60s when the US was the predominant industrial and financial power in the world. Often overlooking the fact that industrial plant and capital in the rest of the world had been destroyed or dislocated as a result of WW2, and that this was a temporary state of affairs that could never last for long. Certainly, one thing that has changed is that the super-rich one percent can be found in every corner of the world now, They're no longer confined to just Europe and America. That's egalitarianism of a sort, I guess.

[AVGWarhawk]

His point around the late 20th century redistribution of wealth is looking like an aberration rather than an ongoing trend is probably right. Though future history may prove him wrong.

I think that the only "new" thing in terms of wealth and income is the ability of an employee (read senior executives), to rise into the top 1%.

Previous eras only company owners tended to hold those roles so even there I don't think much has changed.

The only changes I see are cost of inflation and taxes. Services we pay for today that was not paid for 20 years ago. Phone was a minimal $9.00. TV was free. Internet did not exist. We wrote letters and paid .03 cent to mail it.

[Skybird]

I spent the better part of two hours for googling this guy and book. Sounds very Marx-leaning to me. Typical European nowaday-mainstream, I would say. If that is true, it would not be surprising anymore that he gets plenty of applause from known left-leaning, Keynesian and socialist theoreticians.

http://pc.blogspot.de/2014/04/piketty-egalite-fraternitebut-lets-have.html

Needless to say: while I do not judge his empirical data presentation on past eras (I have not gone into that, for that you indeed would need to read that fat book and wopuld need to have m uch more knowledge on the empirical data than I have, after all at best I am an interested layman on such details ), I seem to need opposing his conclusions. He sings of more taxes for the "rich", more social justice for the people, more equality in possessions - don't we hear this chorus every single day in Western politics nowadays? There is not a single party in the Bundestag who does not populistically say the same. And I claim them all to be socialist parties, all of them, without exception.

As one author in another web publication said: the logical outcome of Piketty's suggestions and conclusions must always be the government and original agenda of Francois Hollande.

See how well they do in France.

The French are Europe's biggest socialists by misled intellect. The Germans are Europe's biggest socialists by misled emotions, and social romanticism. It's surreal.

[Wolferz]

Atlas Shrugs.:yep:

[nikimcbee]

Peace. Land. Bread.

[Skybird]

Atlas Shrugs.:yep:
Indeed. And that will mean a well-deserved but terrible justice.

Already in the late 60s or early 70s the French demanded from the Us to be given back their old reserves that the French - like the Germans - were stupid enough to shuttle to America, for the greater safety there. :haha: The US simply refused to give back the French gold, which of course is nothign else but betrayal and treason at the highest international level possible. The Germans demand since two or three years to even be allowed to physically inspect their reserves in New York, which again the Americans completely refuse to allow. The German government keeps the ball low over this, to not feed growing mistrust over the diabolic thing named paper money (Nixon'S dollar and today'S Euro), but I am by now absolutely certain that the Americans have betrayed Germany and France and other nations and that the gold that was placed in US safes, simply does not exist anymore, has been consumed and handed away. The biggest bank robbery of all time, with the robbers not cracking the safe from outside, but waiting inside. One could want to bomb Washington into ashes for this betrayal.

Interesting to know is that already in 2010 or 2011, I do not remember exactly, during a meeting of the FED with the biggest banks of the US, the FED internally indicated that they will need in the forseeable future an immense amount of storage space. This can only mean one thing: that the FED is aware of the dollar losing its status of global reserve currency and that this will mean the total financial breakdown of the US - and that therefore plans for implementing a new dollar currency that rates the old one null and void are on the table and are prepared in all secrecy. That will become the biggest expropriation event in the history of the United States.

It does not matter in which order the paper currency will collapse, whether Eeuro or Dollar or any other collapses first - in the end they will fall all in a chain reaction. The losses of the ordinary man will be desperate, and many existences will be wiped out.

The gold and silver currency had a generally accepted material commodity as its basis. The Euro and the Dollar only have misled belief and blind faith. They are a religion, and unbelievers are declared heretics and metaphorically get burned alive.

Once that trust collapses, the game is over. Maybe you cannot eat gold, but with gold you can trade for something to eat. With paper money, you cannot - but you can light a camp fire or wipe your youknowwhat.

After that, if we consider it to be below our standards to wipe out the elites who have been responsible for destroying our money and thus: the fruits of our labour, then they will just do the same again - and give us a new paper money, that way trying to save their privileged status and power and influence. And that paper money will end in the same way, in a couple of decades at the latest.

[Skybird]

People do not learn. Currently they are partying over Portugal being able to emit new state bonds, which previously they could not get sold. The ECB has bought them. And now it is party time!

What does not get said in the mainstream media is that the ECB previously bowed to Greek and Portuguese demands of lowering its already hilarious criterions on what to accept as securities for lending them money. Draghi got a document written that rules that from now on even more toxic assets and thus: Portuguese bonds, could be accepted by the ECB as securities.

There are European elections in a couple of weeks, you see. Polish the shine, hide the rotten, lets all SMILE!

There is no consolidation, not in Greece and not in Portugual. It is a lie, a show, a stage act. German heroic worldsavers want to stick to the Euro, and if all the continent sinks in the waves, the Euro will be upheld until it is the last thing sticking out of the troubled ocean.

And that means this for Greece and others: the net receivers have the net payers of the EU by their balls, with net payers voluntarily having dropped their pants, without any need, and without any reason.

Matching that is new son alleged consolidation of budgets in various states, as well as consolidation of economic and labour markets. There have been several such news reports over the past 1-2 weeks. What usually does not get mentioned it hat in these countries, including Germany, the statistical calculation models and variables have been manipulated, to get data out worstening the impression, and to get data in that may not be relevant, but helps to boost the general impression. Data manipulation, in other words, or in plain English: lying. Especially creative in this have been the US recently, in order to boost their GDP now various entertainment and recreation activities like watching an old movie (!!!), are calculated as increasing the value of the total GDP.WTH?I read it a couple of days ago. I couldn't believe it at first.Shows how desperate they try to hide the real numbers from people, and how mercilessly they will distort and abuse all and everything to hide the desperate state of things.

He who stops partying, stops drinking, and stops dancing, drops dead.

[CaptainHaplo]

Wealth inequality has always existed - so how is it the "new" normal?

If anything, the only "new" thing is that the forces of government are becoming more and more active in the process of "redistribution". Until it all falls down. Even then - its hardly "new" - just ask the Roman Empire. Oh wait - you can't...

[Dan D]

Wealth inequality has always existed - so how is it the "new" normal?

If anything, the only "new" thing is that the forces of government are becoming more and more active in the process of "redistribution". Until it all falls down. Even then - its hardly "new" - just ask the Roman Empire. Oh wait - you can't...

That is waffle.

[CaptainHaplo]

It is leavened dough cooked between two plates in a distinctive pattern?
How so?

Or is there another meaning of the word I am not familiar with?

[Tribesman]

r is there another meaning of the word I am not familiar with?
Babbling without meaning.
Making as much sense as barking at the moon.
Saying words, yet with nothing to say.
Blathering nonsense.

Would you like more meanings of the word?

[Wolferz]

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb295/Wolferz_2007/28508_10150193371765322_443273310321_12454495_8385 195_s.gif

[nikimcbee]

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/46561811.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6I-ohuy9FVQ/UdhoVcBAfUI/AAAAAAAACeU/yZ_nm5jBi_o/s1600/tumblr_inline_mlu2jezfdl1qz4rgp.gif
That is waffle.

[Catfish]

What exactly is new on "unequal wealth distribution" ?

This has been existent since the existence of mankind, and the big herd letting do some egomaniacs what they want.

Pyramids and cathedrals - how would that have been created, without rich men sponsoring that, and thousands of poor and underpaid building it ?


But you are right, until 2000 there was at least an official pretense to do something to improve the situation for everyone.

But not anymore. This has gone down the drain after capitalism embraced the former soviet union around 1990. :yep:

[Skybird]

There have to be inequalities, else the economy would not have any motor to drive by. Uneven distribution is what keeps the goings going.

There is an interesting fact from social psychology. It fits so very well in contemporary discussions that claim to be about social "injustice" (how inflationary they abuse this word...), but are about envy.

If you have a group of people and make it that some of them have an increase in their material profits/benefits, and if their increase in profits is the reason for the profits of all others also raising, but not by the same level and degree for all people,

and when you next compare that situation with this situation:

where you have an equal raise in profits/benefits for all and everybody, but that raise being smaller than the raise the people would have had in the situation before,

and if you then evaluate the what people think about it by interviewing them, then social psychology already in the I think late 60s showed that people prefer scenario 2. People prefer to have smaller personal raises in income or profits, if they see there is nobody who has a higher net win then they have themselves. They prefer that to scenario 1, where they would have had higher personal profits, but seeing others getting even more.

In other words, most people prefer to be equal in having less, than to see distribution inequality even if even the smallest net gain for somebody would be higher and thus despite the inequality in distribution nevertheless all would still benefit more. What do we learn? People primnary motivation for deciding whether they agree with scenario 1 or 2, is not the perpsecxtiove to maximise their own possible netto gain, but their primary motivation is envy: nobody should have anything more than they have themselves, even if that means that they would have less than in scenario 1.

ENVY it is about, nothing else.

Biologists have reported repeatedly to have observed some behavior in chimpanzees being motivated by what apparently was envy as well. At least I randomly stumbled over such reports in some internet news three or four times in the past couple of years. However, they also reported they saw othe rbahvior patterns that seem to idnicate that chimps can learn the benefit of more altruistric, group-oriented behavior. Some birds, especially ravens and some others who are known to be very intelligent, also were reported to have shown group coordinated and altruistic behaviour of social give-and-take.

I am since long time a defender of the thesis that masses of people are not driven by higher, complex, noble motivations, but by primjtive instincts and basic motvations laying at the biological root of our existence. These basic motives get dressed in civilizational shine and glamour sometimes, but when the going gets tough, you see the thin layer of civilizational paint flaking off all too fast.

That has been shown in experimental settings already in the late 60s or early 70s, as I said. But it should be obvious that the general discussion today about "social justice" bases on the same psychological mechanism. Thus I said earlier, and repeatedly: in capitalism people are unevenly rich, in socialism people are all equal in poverty. And let'S face it, no other power in man's history has driven more people to raise their material income basis and has raised the wealth of civilizations more, and has fought poverty and misery more efficiently, than capitalism. What the critics now would fire in arguments speaking against that claim, in the end is - often valid! - criticism not of capitalism, but the abuse and distortion of capitalism mainly in the form of monopoly, often caused by the kind of regulation and state control and planned economy that they now want to see implemented even more drastically than it already is. And despite this massive harassment, capitalism still managed to have done more for the increase of general wealth, than any other ideology, religion, policy, whatever - that potent this capitalism is. The socialist economical experiments and ideas of planned economies there have been in the past 150 years - all have failed and collapsed. In the end, the idea of paper money and all the BS caused by it, also is nothing else but the incarnation of this idea, to have a planned, state-regulated economy.

[Tribesman]

What exactly is new on "unequal wealth distribution" ?

You didn't read the piece then?

[STEED]

Wealth inequality is back with a vengeance

It never went away. :rolleyes:

[Dan D]

Why tax the income, the work people do? Work does not make you rich.
Remove the taxes on income and substantially increase the inheritence tax instead. Money makes the world go round. Spend your money!

[CaptainHaplo]

Why tax the income, the work people do? Work does not make you rich.
Remove the taxes on income and substantially increase the inheritence tax instead. Money makes the world go round. Spend your money!

Why tax anything at an "increased" rate? Why not shrink government? Work can and does make people rich. Yes - work ALONE will not make you rich - but nothing else will make you rich without work except inheritance.

Why not reduce the need for government to tax everything, get out of the way of people who are willing to not only work, but innovate?

Because too many people want no part of work - and instead want government to take from other people to give to them.

[TarJak]

It never went away. :rolleyes:

That was my point.

[Armistead]

Before income tax there were tariffs and sale taxes. I think the Yanks tried income tax during the CW, but did away with it. Seems withholding taxes came during WW2.

Anyway, doesn't matter, govt will always find away to extort money..

[Tribesman]

Why tax anything at an "increased" rate?
Good point.
Why should importing brandy attract a bigger tax than importing paper, why is there no tax on importing cocaine?
Food should be taxed at the same rate as a corporate jet and medicine should match the taxes on gambling.
Why not shrink government?
Good question.
Put 4 people in a room and see if you can get them to agree on what should be done away with and what should not be done away with.
If you can get even two of them to agree on the actual details it would be a miracle.

[Skybird]

Why tax the income, the work people do? Work does not make you rich.
Remove the taxes on income and substantially increase the inheritence tax instead. Money makes the world go round. Spend your money!
:dead: A communist's wet dream that is.

Leads to growing expropriation, demotivation to work and dare entrepreneurship, discouraging initiative and making own decisions, since the fruits of one life's work will not be given to the next generation of the family, but will be stolen, so why investing in that model at all? In the end it leads to growing amounts of publicly owned means of production, which means that nobody owns them and so nobody cares for and takes responsibility in maintaining them - but nevertheless thinks he owns it and thus everbody's demands and claims are mounting.

We have seen in the GDR how wonderfully collective property works. Every German should feel ashamed when already ignoring those lessons again, just 25 years later, as if they never have happened. United Germany still pays the bills for the monumental failure of that socialist experiment.

This is just the reason why - if I were a genius inventor or entrepreneur - I would not build my business in Germany or Europe or the West, but would either find another place where the fruits of my decisions and risks and investements and work remain with me - or I would refuse to build that business and leave just empty ground behind me and my life. I would refuse to allow myself getting owned by the plebs. I owe that to myself, to not allow that. To the plebs I owe nothing.

Collective property is never maintained properly, since nobody feels responsible for it, and just voices what he demands to get from it. Its so much easier to spend the money of somebody else. Your own money you are more hesitent to waste like that, and for what is yours you are much more caring, and invest more into its maintenance. That may not be up to the ideological demand of socialists and their dystopic, surreal ideas - but it is how man is ticking and how the market is functioning.

And history has proven the suicidal inferiority of the socialist model over and over and over and over again already. Capitalism is destroyed by its distortions (monopoly, cartel-building, market regulation), and by democratic forms of governments that necessarily lead to the socialist model of state and society. Socialism, no matter how it got implemented, is destroyed by itself.

One thing I admit. It would be extremely helpful, if there would be much, much, much, much smaller societies and population levels only . Regionally as well as globally. We are too many.

Atlas Shrugged has had it all so rightly predicted. It's as if it is the blueprint of the plan by which the West is destroying itself.

[Skybird]

Another review of Piketty's book has been published here:

LINK (http://mises.org/daily/6736/Thomas-Piketty-on-Inequality-and-Capital)


Thomas Piketty has written a popular economics book. In 1936, a difficult-to-read academic book appeared that seemed to tell politicians they could do what they wanted. This was Keynes’s General Theory. Piketty’s book does the same in 2014, and serves the same short-sighted, destructive policies.


And this 5 minute video holds another review of the book, especially the use of Piketty's flawed understanding of rate of return on - as Piketty seesm to understand it: homogenous - capital, a criticism shared by the earlier review.

LINK: Common Sense on Inequality (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3hFhFEjFGI#t=25)

[Onkel Neal]

I don't worry about other people's money. As long as they keep their hands off mine, and the govt and welfare state are the biggest problems with that.

[AVGWarhawk]

I don't worry about other people's money. As long as they keep their hands off mine, and the govt and welfare state are the biggest problems with that.

Understatement.

[Tribesman]

Another review
Von mises?

And this 5 minute video holds another review of the book
Von mises again?

Atlas Shrugged
What a surprise:rotfl2:

And history has proven ......
History has proven that your "distortions" of capitalism are actually the natural results, history has also proven that your "new" ideology failed spectacularly every time it has been used.

Your words again show that you are in favour of mass genocide followed by global totalitarian dictatorship.
People who hold such views can only be described as nuts, or more accurately extremist nuts.

[Skybird]

I don't worry about other people's money. As long as they keep their hands off mine, and the govt and welfare state are the biggest problems with that.

Could you imagine the servility of the German popular mind that demands - serious! - to get taxed even higher than we already are? What the money hopefully then gest used on - "environment and climate protection" and "social justice" - for many Germans has turned into a new surrogate religion (at least as long as they can afford it without having to give up their Summer, Easter, and Christmas holiday trip). After God was scratched off the list of holy shrines, the golden calf they now dance around listens to the names of "social justice", "Multi-Kulti" and "climate protection". The insanity of symptoms in which this shows, is infinite in diversity.

We are the most taxed population amongst all nations, the OECD recently found in a study. And it still is not enough. Needless to say: the state also still gets not along with the tax income it gets, and which has hit a record high last time. Never before Germans created so much tax income fo rthe state. And it is not enough, still.

okay, my dear fellow Germans, I hope you enjoy your self-flagellation.
http://img.welt.de/img/vermischtes/crop100581905/2930716636-ci3x2l-w580-aoriginal-h386-l0/flagellants-bluten-teaser-2-DW-Vermischtes-San-Fernando.jpg
(Good Friday on the Philippines)

[Tribesman]

We are the most taxed population amongst all nations, the OECD recently found in a study.
Really?
Of the 34 countries in the standard chart you get beaten by Belgium every time, quite a lot of the time you are beaten by France, then places like Austria, Hungary, Finland, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Greece...
So by "most" you mean not top overall, and rarely in the top 10% throughout.
Damn that OECD why are their studies so easy to find:rotfl2:

[Dan D]

Hello there,

I have made a concrete suggestion which was: remove the income tax and increase the inheritance/estate tax instead.

No reply, but one which is calling me names.

Let's see: Neal Stevens told me that Texas has no income tax on private households = no income tax. If you look at the OECD numbers for inheritance tax on an international comparison, you find that the inheritance tax in the US is significantly higher than in Germany = increase inheritance tax in Germany instead was my point.
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/grossbild-463448-794991.html

May be I should move to "Texas" which is not called "Taxes" for no reason, living there is a Communist's wet dream according to Skybird's odd logic. In the US at least they seem to understand my ideas for more fiscal justice.

[Skybird]

Taxing, taxing, taxing - that's what it finally means in the end again. In other words: declare some people arbitrarily as "rich", and then plunder them.

A hundred years ago , before WW1, socialist concepts were "en vogue" in European salons and cafe-houses, and most people, whether they were monarchists or republicans, burgoise or proletarian, nationalists or confessing communists (in those times many were both in changing turns, or even at the same time), were convinced that the coming world order would be that of socialism, although the understanding of that term back then was not exactly the same like today.

But most people back then did not have a clue of what they were talking about, and additionally being blinded from visions about how advanced collectivism and socialist society was in dear old Russia,they nevertheless started to lecture about the great theory of socialism, and propagated something that they in no means had realistically and fully realised and thought to its miserable end. These people were pejoratively called "Salon-Sozialisten" or "Katheder-Sozialisten". And rightly so. And finally, socialism came to Germany. It was called NSDAP.

Socialism in the end always means the raping of natural law, and justifies the majority plundering the minority at will. It does not matter whether that is imagined to happen via a totalitarian central state like Rousseault suggested, or regional , smaller but not less totalitarian administrative structures.

You think I link you to all that when mentioning you and communism in one sentence and say that I think of you as a Kathedersozialist, since many years? Congratulations, you are right on target. But do not feel too distinguished by that. Kathedersozialismus is very wide-spread again in Germany. Like it once already was before.

[CaptainHaplo]

Hello there,

I have made a concrete suggestion which was: remove the income tax and increase the inheritance/estate tax instead.

No reply, but one which is calling me names.

Actually Dan - I did reply to you without calling you any names. See post #26 in which I offered a different solution, namely reducing government expenditures and therefore its reliance on tax income.

You mention "fiscal justice" - which, at least here in the States, is simply the new term for wealth redistribution and "equality". The problem is that people are not fiscally equivalent and never will be. Why should someone who wants to not work, sit at home and play video games all day make as much as the person who is willing to work a job of drudgery at McDonalds, or a job of drudgery at Bank of America? Can one claim some salaries are outsized? Sure, but making everything "equal" when people are not equal in skill, ability, knowledge or drive is definitely not the answer. Therefore, looking to other solutions is.

Getting government out of the way of the people who would use their skills, ability, knowledge and drive to get ahead is one such solution.

[Skybird]

Many such oversized salaries are becoming that under political protection from the government. Now government should regulate and control it? The fox in charge of the hen-house?

The logic behind "fiscal justice" is simply this: that socialists claim that people who have more, by that fact alone already "owe" to others not having that. And this alone already serves as the justification for plundering them - by democratic majority vote, of course.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

Two sentences one could not repeat often enough.

[TarJak]

So us inequality the real problem?
http://wwwabc.net.au/news/2014-04-29/berg-we-should-fear-slow-growth-not-inequality/5417366

[Onkel Neal]

Could you imagine the servility of the German popular mind that demands - serious! - to get taxed even higher than we already are? What the money hopefully then gest used on - "environment and climate protection" and "social justice" - for many Germans has turned into a new surrogate religion (at least as long as they can afford it without having to give up their Summer, Easter, and Christmas holiday trip). After God was scratched off the list of holy shrines, the golden calf they now dance around listens to the names of "social justice", "Multi-Kulti" and "climate protection". The insanity of symptoms in which this shows, is infinite in diversity.

We are the most taxed population amongst all nations, the OECD recently found in a study. And it still is not enough. Needless to say: the state also still gets not along with the tax income it gets, and which has hit a record high last time. Never before Germans created so much tax income fo rthe state. And it is not enough, still.

okay, my dear fellow Germans, I hope you enjoy your self-flagellation.




Yeah, That's sad. I can understand the need for taxes to run a government, and defense, and for those common good projects, but it is seriously out of control. Now the govt knows better than you how what to do with your money, and one party basically survives on this concept.

[Dan D]

Actually Dan - I did reply to you without calling you any names. See post #26 in which I offered a different solution, namely reducing government expenditures and therefore its reliance on tax income.

You mention "fiscal justice" - which, at least here in the States, is simply the new term for wealth redistribution and "equality". The problem is that people are not fiscally equivalent and never will be. Why should someone who wants to not work, sit at home and play video games all day make as much as the person who is willing to work a job of drudgery at McDonalds, or a job of drudgery at Bank of America? Can one claim some salaries are outsized? Sure, but making everything "equal" when people are not equal in skill, ability, knowledge or drive is definitely not the answer. Therefore, looking to other solutions is.

Getting government out of the way of the people who would use their skills, ability, knowledge and drive to get ahead is one such solution.

I am not so much interested in ideology-driven debates. In Germany we have had both loonies from the right and left in charge in the past and I think people here are well aware how much damage can be done by either form of political extremism and don't want to have this repeated.

Raising taxes is not necessariliy equivalent with wealth redistribution from rich to poor and wealth redistribution is not necessarily a „Socialist“ thing or „Commie plot“.

There is a historic example for wealth redistribution in Germany based on a general agreement: the „Lastenausgleich“ (equalisation of burdens of WW II).

The idea behind the Lastenausgleich was that those parts of the German people who had suffered the most from the conseqences of WW II, those who had lost everything, get a financial compensation by the state for reasons of „social justice“. Those people were mainly displaced persons from the former Eastern parts of Germany like e.g Skybird's family from Silesia and people who got bombed out.

It was and is financed the following way:
Those who still had a considerable wealth after the war, especially estate property, pay „burden-sharing levies“. The amount of the fee was calculated according to the amount of assets as at June 21. 1948. The levies amounted 50 % of the calculated assets and could be paid in instalments over a 30- years period into the Equalisation Fund. For this purpose a wealth tax, a credit gains tax and a mortgage income tax was introduced. Because of the 30-years period the financial burden was 1,67 % of assests each year so that the payments could be made from the income values of the asset without touching the substance of the asset.

The Lastenausgleich was not a Socialist idea but a Bourgeois-Conservative one. They did it as they were running the government.

Same could be done with Germany's national debt e.g. Germany's national debt equals something like 2,5 trillion Euros. That is 25.000 Euros in public debt per capita. Private households in Germany have 6,6 trillion Euros in private assets or 88.000 € per capita. It would be possible to pay off the national debt from the retuns of private assets over a period of time of 30 years, if there would be a general agreement to do so, which we don't have, and if the government does its part, too, which is using tax money to reduce the national debt.

[Skybird]

The government already is eating the private savings by taxation, inflation, low interests rates and devaluation of money the latter two mean. That is why current political paradigm claim that inflation is "desirable". But that is a lie and a folly, it remains to be a crime to cover a criminal economic policy in general. Like you cannot spend yourself out of debts, you cannot cut debts by printing money. But that is what they try. Their failure is already decided, the question only is about the "when?"

The interest yield (Zinsbindung) of real assets, money and sight deposits is close to nill, and gets eaten up by cold progression and inflation. Calculating with the numbers provided by the Deutsche Bundesbank for 2012 and 2013, The value losses of private savings and deposits in Germany equalled 0.5% of the GDP - minimum, that were over 14 billion in 2012.

What's worse: with each year of low-interest policy, deals and arrangements of fixed interest ratings with higher values run out and get get replaced with new deals featuring extremely low interest ratings. That's why by the end of 2013 the loss to the savings and deposits of private persons had climbed from 0.5% of the GDP to already over 2% of the GDP, or close to 60 billion.

All that still does not include the redistribution and plundering by changed taxation schemes. Th Great Coalition has announced some policy changes there that will cost the tax payers, especially the young people, even more. With over 50% of the electorate being above the age of 50, one does not need much imagination to figure who politicians will try to bribe with election promises: the younger or the older ones.

The only way to preserve the value of savings in money and sight depposits, is to chnage them into physical gold, silver, or something similiar like platin or palladium - but you need to know what you are doing with the latter two. Buying gold is freed from VAT duty, and per day up to 15,000 Euros can be exchnaged for physical gold anonymously, without the state ever learning about it. Except the realistic chance that after the Euro collapsed in 10 years or 15, and the new currency reform ith new paper(!) money being printed being accompanied by a new gold prohibition, this is the best and safest thing to keep the value of your reserves in private savings. Even in a prohibition, you can still trade the gold: just at a dramatically multiplied risk of getting draconically punished, or plundered and existentially ruined during a police razzia. Not suited well for the task of keeping private savings and property away from the plundering state, is land and house property, state bonds, any paper money currencies, even stock papers. Where the state knows that somebody owns something, it will strike and rob the victim.

[CaptainHaplo]

I am not so much interested in ideology-driven debates. In Germany we have had both loonies from the right and left in charge in the past and I think people here are well aware how much damage can be done by either form of political extremism and don't want to have this repeated.

While I agree loonies cause damage, you can't have a debate without ideology - it is what defines positions.

Raising taxes is not necessariliy equivalent with wealth redistribution from rich to poor and wealth redistribution is not necessarily a „Socialist“ thing or „Commie plot“. You are right. However, raising taxes on certain segments of society or classes of people because they "can afford it" (says who, I wonder - oh yes, those that "can't" afford it, generally) to pay for things that they will not use but others will - is wealth redistribution.

There is a historic example for wealth redistribution in Germany based on a general agreement: the „Lastenausgleich“ (equalisation of burdens of WW II).

The key words there are "general agreement". A point I will elaborate on further in a moment.

The idea behind the Lastenausgleich was that those parts of the German people who had suffered the most from the conseqences of WW II, those who had lost everything, get a financial compensation by the state for reasons of „social justice“. Those people were mainly displaced persons from the former Eastern parts of Germany like e.g Skybird's family from Silesia and people who got bombed out.

It was and is financed the following way:
Those who still had a considerable wealth after the war, especially estate property, pay „burden-sharing levies“. The amount of the fee was calculated according to the amount of assets as at June 21. 1948. The levies amounted 50 % of the calculated assets and could be paid in instalments over a 30- years period into the Equalisation Fund. For this purpose a wealth tax, a credit gains tax and a mortgage income tax was introduced. Because of the 30-years period the financial burden was 1,67 % of assests each year so that the payments could be made from the income values of the asset without touching the substance of the asset.

The Lastenausgleich was not a Socialist idea but a Bourgeois-Conservative one. They did it as they were running the government. The key is - how many of those paying the "burden sharing levies" were in agreement? Its one thing to say there was general agreement - if you have 95% of the people agreeing, and 5% disagreeing - you have "general agreement". But if the 95% were the ones getting paid, and the 5% were the ones paying - the "general agreement" was basically nothing more than the have nots deciding they would take from the haves.

What good is ownership if those that do not own it have the right - under the guise of government or "general agreement" - to come take what you have from you for their own purposes?

Same could be done with Germany's national debt e.g. Germany's national debt equals something like 2,5 trillion Euros. That is 25.000 Euros in public debt per capita. Private households in Germany have 6,6 trillion Euros in private assets or 88.000 € per capita. It would be possible to pay off the national debt from the retuns of private assets over a period of time of 30 years, if there would be a general agreement to do so, which we don't have, and if the government does its part, too, which is using tax money to reduce the national debt.Ya know - I would be for this in the US - but EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the country should "pay their share" - and the share should be equal. But it won't happen. Why? Because too many would scream that they can not pay it (I know I would struggle, being a single dad with 2 kids). So instead you hear about how the evil "rich" should be made to pay even more.

This is why we in the US need to move to a simple consumption tax that is state run. The Federal gov't should be spending only what it makes and only from the sources ascribed to in the Constitution.

[Wolferz]

Promote co-operation. Not competition.

[Dan D]

@CaptainHaplo

As you mention the US Constitution, I can only speak for my countries constitution. It says in Art. 14 GG:
1) Property and the right of inheritance shall be guaranteed
2) Property entails obligations. Its use shall also serve the public good.
3) Expropriation shall only be permissible for the public good. It may only be ordered by or pursuant to a law that determines the nature and extent of compensation. Such compensation shall be determined by establishing an equitable balance between the public interest and the interests of those affected.

„Expropriation“ is extremly rare, example: the new Autobahn has to be built on your property („Get out of my way!“ :=).
Below that, there is a „social responsibility“ that comes along with property ownership. It may be in the public interest to freeze the price creation for rentals for housing (housing rental bubbles) for some time.

Main assets are enjoying privileged grandfathering status ( section 1 and see 3 "expropriation"). Yield on assets can be taxed for the public good, they are less priviliged (section 2), says the Constitutional Court. Right now, we have 2/3 of yield of assets stay tax-free.

With regard to your „comsumption tax“ as people get taxed on how much they consume rather than how much they add to the economy (income tax) I see a problem which is illustrated by the following chart: https://twitter.com/MarkMellman/status/462951610042564608/photo/1/large
„Costs for Americans have soared for education, child care etc. and have plummeted for television, toys and phones, relative to other prices“. The chart has the comment: „Why the poor can have „things“ but can't escape poverty“.

This brings us back to the start: If the gap between rich and poor gets bigger and bigger, when is it in the public interest or even a public duty to react?
If you guarantee equality rights in your constitution, which would be equal opportunities for education also. where shall the money come from that you need for tutorial costs for gifted children from low-income families?

[CaptainHaplo]

This brings us back to the start: If the gap between rich and poor gets bigger and bigger, when is it in the public interest or even a public duty to react?

Because the "poor" far outnumber the "rich" - it is always in the "public interest" simply because of the numbers. The devil is in the details, what defines "poor" and "rich"? Also - WHO defines them? The terms themselves are purposefully nebulous.

If you guarantee equality rights in your constitution, which would be equal opportunities for education also. where shall the money come from that you need for tutorial costs for gifted children from low-income families?

Equality rights are not always "equal opportunity". After all, should a child born without arms have the State (and thereby the public) pay for prosthetic arms JUST because they want to play basketball? If you say no, your denying that child the equal opportunity to play basketball. What about being able to join the military - a government entity? Should the Military be forced to find a way to let someone with an IQ below 35 be a part of its membership, be forced to find a way to let them go handle weaponry? How about if they want to fly a plane?

At what point do you draw the line?

Hey, Johnny got arrested for manufacturing meth and selling it, killing 2 teenagers with a bad batch, and that was after he got busted for embezzling from his last "real" job and the cops finding all that child porn on his computer. Equal opportunity right - so he should be able to get a job watching young children? See - anything can be taken to the extreme....

Equality when used as a discussion point isn't usually about access - its about outcomes. If that gifted child from a poor family is actually gifted, guess what - chances are really high that that child will grow out of poverty through hard work. Think not? I can point to all kinds of poor families that were supposed to be especially disadvantages - that produced some great successes. People who had to overcome not just poverty, but supposed racism as well... Like Oprah Winfrey, Condi Rice, and Colin Powell. Know what each of them have in common? They were not only smart - but hard working.

Equality does not mean that you should have the guarantee of a 60" tv if your neighbor gets one. It means you have just as much of an opportunity to go out and work your ass off and earn what is needed to buy that same tv.

"Gifted" people get that. "Gifted" people are willing to go do it. They don't expect a government check to arrive and do it for them. A check paid for by others.