A Hedge Fund Republic?

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by tater

I'm for locking up people that hire illegals, and shoot to kill on the border, I'm for fixing that FIRST.

Mookie, "accepted economic theory" pretty much means left-leaning guys in academia.

The real question is if the money is put more effectively into the economy by being spent, or by going through the filter of the government. The government borrows so much, that the overhead just associated with interest on their spending instantly makes it inefficient. Better to not confiscate the moeny, than spend it at XX% on the dollar (even less give all the gov payroll that comes out between collection and expense).

The top 1% makes it sound like you are discussing Oprah and Bill Gates. You're in fact talking about hundreds of thousands of families where wages absolutely = hours worked. Professionals, for example. Every penny they don't pay in taxes will be invested or otherwise spent. They don't have jets, they only sometimes even have a 2d house (in fancy places like Pecos, lol—unlike back east, if someone here has a "cabin"... it's a CABIN). If they lives in CA or NY, they'd be hard-pressed to not spend every penny just to live. Housing is insane in NYC or CA, as ducimus can tell you. It's a million bucks to get a tiny place. 250k in major metro areas is hardly "rich."

I work in the financial business. We deal with factual and data driven analysis, not theory. If someone is going to propose theory, it needs to be backed up by empirical data. I have never seen one piece of data driven analysis for trickle down economics. All that is ever offered in its defense is idealistic thinking and anecdotal evidence. That doesn't hold water. Therefore, it doesn't work.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

I work in the financial business. We deal with factual and data driven analysis, not theory. If someone is going to propose theory, it needs to be backed up by empirical data. I have never seen one piece of data driven analysis for trickle down economics. All that is ever offered in its defense is idealistic thinking and anecdotal evidence. That doesn't hold water. Therefore, it doesn't work.

So, in your opinion, which economic system works best?

[tater]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

I work in the financial business. We deal with factual and data driven analysis, not theory. If someone is going to propose theory, it needs to be backed up by empirical data. I have never seen one piece of data driven analysis for trickle down economics. All that is ever offered in its defense is idealistic thinking and anecdotal evidence. That doesn't hold water. Therefore, it doesn't work.

That sounds very scientific.

I can predict specifics about a star very far away more accurately than you can predict the economy a month in the future. Economics is not science, sadly. So all the talk about empirical data is great, but all the models are so terrible that the data doesn't make much of a difference. If the top marginal rate went up 1%, what will the tax revenue be the next year? How accurate can you be? How about not accurate at all—say to the nearest dollar (if it was a physics thing I'd want it out in the deep decimal places).

Nope, they'd have error bars larger than the 1%.