Wealth inequality is the new normal

[Skybird]

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

LINK

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.

[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]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

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.

Another review

Von mises?

And this 5 minute video holds another review of the book

Von mises again?

Atlas Shrugged

What a surprise

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]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

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.

(Good Friday on the Philippines)

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

[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/gro...48-794991.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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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...uality/5417366

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Skybird

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]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

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]

Originally Posted by Dan D

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.